Price To Play
by Team Dragon Star
Summary: A simple glitch has left them trapped within the virtual world, yet they are about to discover that the most dangerous things aren't computer generated.
1. Chapter 1

**This is an idea that some of us came up with and we decided to give it a shot. This chapter is written by Razamataz22 and ShadowMajin.**

**Disclaimer: We do not own anything affiliated with the .Hack series.**

...

For Marcus, the box sitting in front of him was something he had never expected. Sitting in front of him was the BETA test of the newest "The World" designed by CyberConnect Corporation. He hadn't even essentially wanted to enter the contest to get the game but had been pressured into it by his mates during a night of heavy drinking. Now, sitting in his shared unit at university, he had the system which many people had only dreamed of having. Remembering the promotion, the first round of BETA shipments, of which his was one of twenty five were shipped out a week before the next load which numbered well above the five hundred mark.

From outside his room, he could hear joyous screams as his female roommates partied as hard as their bodies allowed them. He would have joined them but he had an essay that needed immediate completion, sadly he was never going to get any work done with all that racquet going on. With a defeated sigh, he booted up his laptop, the old technology still reliable even after everything Marcus had put it through. Waiting for the loading screen to fade, he surveyed the contents of his room, at the organized mess. To anybody else, they would consider it a pigsty but to him, he knew exactly where everything was...to a certain degree at least.

With an audible *Ping,* his laptop completed firing up and Marcus inserted the installation disc, spending the next several minutes clicking on "Yes," and "I agree to the terms and conditions," repetitively. As the contents of the disc downloaded onto his software, his fingers played with covering for the eyes. Like sunglasses, they slipped over your ears before they blocked out all other view, enhancing the sensation that the world you were playing in was indeed the new world.

The words, "Thank you for installing," flashed upon the screen, and eager to escape from the noisiness echoing through the hallway, Marcus placed the cover over his eyes and allowed himself to immerse into the game. The loading screen flashed before his eyes as the game registered him as a new player.

"_Username," _commanded an omniscient voice.

"Razamataz Twentytwo," he responded, using the nickname he had gained from school along with his sister's birth date. In all honesty, he couldn't truly recall how he had been given a nickname that didn't even match to his actual name but had stuck with it simply because he liked the ring of it. Then came the fun part, creating the character.

While Marcus wouldn't say he was a geek, he wouldn't deny the fact that he enjoyed "nerding it up," as he and some mates put it from time to time. He knew that once he got into the game, clothes would be easily accessible so he didn't worry too much about that. As he looked at the finished product, he liked the look of the small crop of brown hair that left a single curl dangling in front of his forehead. His character stood just under six feet tall and had an average frame, nothing too skinny or too fat. Marcus had opted not to maximize the amount of muscle his character had as he believed that while it may look impressive, it served no real purpose. Finally he looked at the eyes, a cerulean blue in colour they seemed to carry a whirlwind of emotions, something he was very pleased with.

"_Character Customization, complete?"_ asked the voice once again.

"Complete," he responded which then caused his character to vanish and a list of class abilities to appear.

"_Please choose a primary class and a secondary class," _stated the voice.

"You get two classes now, that makes things interesting," muttered Marcus as he eyed everything off. He didn't particularly want anything to do with magic which greatly reduced the list available to him. Making his decision, he spoke to the computer. "Primary class, Archer. Secondary class, Hunter," he listed.

"_Primary class, Archer and Secondary class, Hunter, confirm this is correct?"_

"Yea, yea, just let me play already," said Marcus getting tired of the automatic voice pounding into his ear.

"_Activation Confirmed, you are now entering The World,"_ said the voice as everything vanished to black. Sadly, as he entered The World for the first time he was unaware of his body toppling from his chair, a soft thud unheard by his roommates was the last sound that would come from his room for the day.

...

Inside the game, Raz surveyed his surroundings. He had to admit that the designers had really gone to town on the new look and as he knelt down and touched the gravel beneath his feet; he was amazed that he could pick up individual pebbles and rub them between his fingers. Raising his eyes, he admired the tranquillity of the place, even though he knew it was only momentarily, knowing that within a couple of months that there would literally by thousands of people walking through this city. Not to mention how many other people would be traversing the realm at the same time, the town was only a tiny area on an incredibly large map.

Raz took a gentle stroll down the path, kind of regretting now that he hadn't bothered to equip his character with any shoes before he had left. It was no real problem though, having grown up in the countryside he was used to getting around without any footwear. As he descended further into town he began to come across a number of non-playable characters, guards standing at bay and characters that he could tell he'd need to talk to if he wished to do a quest. Surprisingly though he didn't see any shopkeepers and wondered if there just weren't any installed at the moment or if he needed to complete something in order to unlock them.

His big toe collided with a rock that was pointing upwards and the stubbing feeling ran through his body quickly. "Damn it," he cursed before a single realisation flooded through him. He had actually felt the pain. It wasn't just a small prick to let him know he'd been injured as his health hadn't depleted at all, but he could feel the pain radiating from the injury. "They didn't say anything about this in the pre-release details."

An audible sound was heard and he turned his head back to the portal just in time to see several golden rings descend and ascend in an intricate pattern before stopping to reveal that another player had just entered the game. As their eyes lay upon him, he knew that he had some questions that needed to be answered.

...

As the entry portal light faded, Ryan was surprised by what he saw. This world-it was incredible! Everything looked so real! The grass was rippling as the wind blew by; the sky an empty void of blue only changing as a bright sun slowly made its way from horizon to horizon. A few trees dotted the landscape, providing small bits of shade, though that was the last thought on Ryan's mind.

Excuse him, make that ShadowMajin.

For a game that was just handed to him in a video game store, free of charge, the graphics on this were pretty good. And this character, this Flick Reaper, he was a pretty cool looking guy if he didn't say so himself. Well, maybe the purple and black robe was a bit cheesy, but the big scythe on his back was worth it. Running a hand through his short brown hair, his brown eyes swept over the area until something attracted his attention.

Was that...could it be...people? Oh hell yeah! Social activity!

Alright, okay, don't be a dork. Just walk up to the guy and say hi. Taking a deep, ShadowMajin walked over to the person, putting on his brightest smile and calling out. "Hey, how's it-"

Suddenly, the man whipped around and rammed a fist into his stomach, causing a jolt of pain to explode in his gut as he lost his breath. Stumbling backwards, he gasped out "What the hell, man! Why'd you do that?"

"Alright then, thanks for confirming my theory," the man said as he ran his fingers through his hair.

"Theory? What theory?" asked ShadowMajin as he tried to catch his breath.

"That I'm not the only one who feels pain in this world," he answered as he looked off to the side. It was as if he were contemplating something.

Not that ShadowMajin cared. "So...you punched me over a theory? Dude, seriously," he whined. Well that wasn't the way he expected his first encounter to go. Ugh, and this game had started out so well too. "At least if you're gonna punch me, you might as well give me your name."

"Razamataz Twentytwo, just call me Raz, it's easier," he said with a shrug of the shoulders. "Since I introduced myself, you going to tell me who you are?"

"Only if you don't punch me again," ShadowMajin tried to joke. Since Raz didn't laugh, he quickly picked up that the joke fell flat. "I'm ShadowMajin. Umm...I guess you could call me Shadow if you want."

"Alright then Shadow, now I want you to follow my instructions carefully," said Raz as Shadow nodded slowly in understanding. "Log off of the system," he said and continued as Shadow looked like he was about to respond. "Do you want me to punch you again?"

Shadow stared at him for a moment. Who was this guy? Seriously? Did he really have to enter the game with a crazy guy? Completely rotten luck. "And why should I log off?" he questioned, a hand moving up to grasp his scythe. No way was he going to get hit again without dishing out some damage. "You mind telling me what's going on?"

"If you can't get out of the system I'll tell you everything I know," said Raz looking wearily at the scythe. He hadn't accessed the inventory yet so he hadn't gotten anything to equip in order to fight back against something that looked so menacing.

Keeping an eye on Raz, Shadow accessed his menu and scrolled down to the log off tab. Accessing it, a pop-up window appeared, citing LOG OUT ERROR. That made Shadow jerk his head back slight. That was unexpected. Frowning, he performed the log out sequence again, once more receiving the error window.

"It...looks like I can't," he said hesitantly. "Maybe there's a glitch in the system? It could go away in a bit."

"Do you think a simple glitch in the system can make you feel pain?" asked Raz watching the curious look spread across Shadow's face. "Stay here and see whether or not the next person who comes through is able to logout, I'm going to go see if I can get any more information from anybody."

Without waiting for a response, Raz turned and walked away, leaving Shadow standing there with a confused look upon his face.

Well, that was weird. At least that guy was gone now. Still, he did bring up a point about the pain. But then, didn't these games usually have the characters feel pain? How else would they know they took damage? It had to be part of the game play.

But it would definitely be a good idea to see if someone else had the same problem. It could be a system-wide glitch or an isolated incident. Either way, he was here to play.

Hey, that was right! He was supposed to be here to play, not sit around waiting like some idiot while everyone else had fun. If that Razama...Raza...uhh, Raz guy wanted to test some wild theory, _he_ should be the one waiting for people. Shadow just had to ask anyone he encountered and that would suffice. Oh right then, it's time to have some fun.

...

Raz slowly walked away from Shadow, a lot of things dwelling within his mind. He had heard before about people getting trapped within the game but he had thought they were merely myths to scare young kids into stop playing video games. They could talk about it all they wanted but in the end it made no difference. They were stuck within a virtual world where the pain their character felt was felt by them. There was no controller, there was no screen to look at, everything around him was now the world he was in.

"Sir, could you help me?" asked a nearby voice, which caused Raz to turn around to find himself staring at a guard. He was holding a small poster of a young man which looked rather shady.

"Fine, what do you want?" replied Raz. It was obvious that the Non-Playable Character was going to give him a quest.

"This young man has been reported stealing from various citizens, it would be greatly appreciated if you could track him down for us," explained the guard. "I would go myself but I am required to maintain my post to ensure the safety of the citizens."

"What citizens?" muttered Raz, knowing that his speech was programmed for when there were thousands of users lining the streets. "Fine, I'll take your quest."

"Much appreciated sir," replied the guard as a small green light appeared over Raz's head, indicating that he had just accepted the quest. "I wish you luck in apprehending this criminal."

"Whatever," said Raz as he brushed the guard off as the green light above his head faded. Turning around he began walking through the street, his mind wondering how he could access the files representing the finer details of the mission. Back when computer games were simple it was a matter of pressing Ctrl+I, however there was no way to access that now. "Open Sesame?" He knew it wouldn't work but he needed a light chuckle which was exactly what the comment gave him. "Alright, list of commands for voice recognition included…" He was really starting to wish he'd actually looked at the manual before playing. "Access quests." Nothing. "Show new quest." Nothing. "Inventory." Success.

A small flash of light appeared before him as a small scroll fell into his hand. "That's convenient," he muttered as he opened the scroll. At the top of the list lay the quest he had just taken, underneath that was a Hunting Knife, a single potion and in the top right corner there was a number representing he had fifty gold. Tapping the Hunting Knife, said weapon and sheath appeared before him. Finding a spot on his pants, he slid the sheath of the knife through a belt loop before he pressed the potion, sliding the small bottle of green fluid into his pants pocket. With his inventory all but bare, he finally placed his finger on the quest, another scroll appearing in front of him which he plucked out of the air. He rolled up the inventory scroll and placed it in his back pocket, not particularly wanting to have to shout out "Inventory" every time he wanted to equip something.

Opening the scroll, he was greeted with another picture of the person he was meant to capture. "Let's see," he said as he skimmed through the information. "Catch thief…last located in the market area…bring in alive. Got it." As he rolled up the scroll, he pulled the inventory back out of his back pocket and opened it up again. Holding the quest scroll in one hand and the inventory in the other, he came across his next problem. "How the hell do I put something in the inventory?"

For a minute he simply stared at his hands, wondering how the hell he was meant to put the quest scroll back where he had gotten it. Awkwardly, he held the quest over the inventory and pushed it into the paper, happy to see it vanish and the description reappear in the inventory. "Let's see what else is on this thing," said Raz as he browsed across the top of the inventory. Pressing the word which said Statistics, the page shifted and transformed into a list displaying his Health, Special Points, Attack, Defence, Intelligence, Stamina and Speed. With his health and special points both set at thirty and ten respectively, he saw the number three next to his attack and two next to his speed, probably the bonuses that his class had given him. Besides everything else was a flat number zero which disheartened him slightly. Thankfully, in the top corner there was fifteen un-submitted points.

"This is going to be interesting," said Raz as he began adding the statistical points where he saw fit. When he had finally finished, he was happy with where he had added everything, focusing on speed as a central point. Browsing across the top bar once again, he came across the words Abilities, Friends and Map. Pressing Abilities, a tree of potential abilities spread out before him. With a single ability point to spend and only one Ability possible to unlock at this time, he didn't have much choice in what he selected. It didn't help either that every ability spread out from this one it was set that one way or another he had to choose it if he wanted to proceed further into the game. To say it was a game now was almost a joke, he knew he was trapped here until they discovered a way out which in truth could be weeks from now, there was no way of judging how long they would be stuck in there.

Selecting the one ability available, it changed from being black and white, gaining colour as the frame glittered. "That's going to get annoying," Raz muttered as he scanned what this ability gave him. "Gives 10% chance that target hit with an arrow will be winded momentarily. What a great ability to have, now if only I had a bow," he said sarcastically as he rolled up the scroll and put it in his back pocket.

"Alright, chase down the thief and get the reward," said Raz as he focused on the task at hand. It actually helped his state of mind at the moment to focus more on the game than on how to get out. He knew that if somebody worried about the situation too much it could get very ugly.

Coming to the marketplace, he was able to see a number of people wishing for quests to be completed and with a sigh he knew he'd have to complete them later if they were to progress at all. He could imagine that when there were people all over the place, finding the thief amongst the ground would be difficult. To see him simply standing there look around nervously was just plain stupid. "Let's get this over with," he muttered as he walked up to the NPC. As soon as he got close enough, the thief took off. "This is where the fun begins," said Raz viciously as a malicious smile crept across his face, quickly taking off after his opponent. The thief twisted and turned down a nearby alleyway knocking over a number of boxes and barrels as he did. With little effort, Raz leapt over the carnage, not once losing a stride as he gained ground. The thief turned another corner and Raz quickly followed, only to run straight into the thieves extended arm.

The sneak attack easily knocked Raz to the ground, leaving him coughing heavily as he lay up on the flat of his back, wondering what the hell had just happened. He got no reprieve though as the thief began kicking him in the chest. Had this game been normal, Raz imagined his health would be dropping slowly. Since he was able to feel pain however…

"Stop that you bastard!" he shouted as he rolled onto his side, spring boarding off his feet and tackling the thief into the nearby wall. On level footing now, Raz quickly swung his fist three times into the man's ribs before he could do nothing but watch as the thief swung his head forward, connecting his forehead with Raz's brow. "Asshole!" shouted Raz as he regained his bearings as a fist jabbed at his nose. By reaction alone was Raz able to move out of the way before he landed a vicious uppercut to the man's jaw.

"I yield," the man screamed as he slumped to the ground, utterly defeated. Slowly, Raz unclenched his fist as blood trickled down his face from where the thief's head-butt had cut the skin. He rubbed the wound with the back of his wrist, the blood smearing against his skin.

"Come on you bastard," said Raz as he picked up the man by the scruff of his shirt, twisting his arm behind his back painfully as he marched the man back to the guard.

"Thank you for your help," said the guard as he took the thief off of Raz. "Here's the reward as promised," he concluded as he passed a small brown bag to Raz. With a silent nod, Raz opened up the bag and emptied the contents into his hand, 15 gold coins in total. As he shook the last of the contents, a small blue light came out which his palm quickly absorbed.

"XP?" he said with a questioning tone as he pulled out his inventory scroll. Before he skimmed to the stats screen however, he saw that the total number of gold by his name had changed to sixty five, the gold he had held having been transported to his inventory. With a small frown, he clicked on the gold and allowed the sum of money to appear in his hand, to which he inserted into the brown pouch the guard had given him then placed in his pocket. Even out in the real world, he always preferred carrying the money instead of having it sitting away somewhere. Finally, he moved to the statistics page and saw that he had gained five experience points. It also showed in the stats that the fight had deprived him of nine points of health, not like it mattered considering he hurt a hell of a lot more than he imagined nine points of damage would.

Rolling up the scroll with a sigh, he put it back into his pocket before heading back to where he had left Shadow, wondering if anybody else had entered the game. As he viewed the portal again ,however, he noticed that Shadow had taken off somewhere, which didn't really leave Raz in the best mood, knowing that if somebody else had entered the game and Shadow wasn't there to greet them they could be anywhere around town by now. "Ah shit," he cursed wondering just what he should do now.

...

This...world...is...AWESOME!

With a spring in his step and humming a tune, Shadow was feeling great about himself. The countryside was just as amazing as the edge of town. There was forests and grassy plains and even a few mountains off in the distance. Though he stayed out of the forest for the time being, the grassy plains had their own little surprises.

Yet for some reason, he felt as if he were forgetting something.

As he approached the edge of town, more specifically the entry point he and Raz had met, Shadow spied a figure standing by their lonesome. The closer he moved towards the person, the more he found it to be Raz, arms crossed over his chest and a sour look on his face.

For some reason, Shadow felt the urge to grasp his scythe.

But in the interest of being friendly and letting bygones be bygones, Shadows approached the ill-humoured Raz and greeted him. "Hey, you're back."

Raz glared at him momentarily before a cunning idea sprang into his mind. "Yeah, couldn't find any info on getting out but I found a pretty sweet quest you should do."

"You do? What is it?" asked Shadow still a little bit weary.

"Go down the street and take a left," instructed Raz pointing down the road. "There'll be a guard standing there wanting you to go catch a thief but here's the tricky part. He's says that you need to bring him alive but it's a ploy. I killed the bugger and got twice as much experience and gold as I would have if I had taken him in."

"Really?" Shadow perked up. "Thanks!" Perhaps this Raz guy wasn't as bad as he thought he was. "I'll go do that. You should check out the countryside. I ran into some wild boars out there and they were easy to take down! And the best part is: they dropped bacon! Can you believe that? Actual bacon!"

"Sounds good, I need to check out a bit of the surroundings anyway, have fun doing the mission," said Raz as he ran past Shadow in the direction towards where he had come from, intending on grabbing himself some bacon for the show.

"Time to get that thief," Shadow said out loud, more to himself than anything. Following Raz's directions, he found the guard that offered the quest and quickly accepted it. With excitement running throughout his system, he searched out the town, finding the nervous looking NPC.

With a smirk, Shadow approached the thief and watched him take off running. "And the chase is on," he trumpeted as he took off after his prey. As the NPC darted and dashed through the street, Shadow found himself trailing behind the character, never gaining ground on him. On occasions the NPC would pause before running off again, causing Shadow to grow annoyed. Alright, the next chance he got, he was so going to level up his speed. This was just annoying.

Suddenly, the thief shot into an alleyway, causing Shadow to panic slightly. Losing sight of the NPC was not a good thing, ever. What if there was a maze of alleys back there? He'd never find the thief and complete the mission! Running as fast as he could, he dashed into the alley, only to have an arm appear out of nowhere and clothesline him.

A brief flight through the air ended with Shadow landing hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him. What the hell, seriously? That was the second time he had the wind knocked out of him! That was getting old real fast. Of course, that train of thought came to an end when the thief appeared above him and began kicking him in the chest and stomach, causing a flood of pain to rip through his body.

Letting out a cry, Shadow gritted his teeth and shot his hands out, grabbing onto the thief's foot as it came down to stomp on him. "I've...had...enough!" he roared as he twisted the thief's foot and leg, causing the NPC to lose his balance fall to the ground, spinning until he crashed onto the pavement.

Getting back to his feet, Shadow pulled his double-bladed scythe off his back, one hand holding the weapon high on the shaft and the other towards the bottom. With a roar, he hefted the blade behind his shoulder and lunged towards the thief, swinging the heavy weapon down and piercing the NPC right in the chest.

Blood shot out of the thief as he let out a cry of pain before falling still. With a triumphant grin, Shadow pulled his blade out of the body and knelt down beside corpse. Wiping the blood off, he put his weapon back on his back and picked up the thief's body and took him back to the guard. Dropping the dead weight at the guard's feet, Shadow grinned at him and said "Here's your thief."

He wasn't expecting the guard to pull out his sword and point it right at his neck. Neither were the other two guards that materialized behind him with their own weapons trained on him. "You're under arrest for murder," the guard intoned harshly, Shadow staring at him with wide eyes. "Failure to bring in the target alive is the removal of currently held EXP, half your gold and imprisonment."

Shocked, Shadow watched as his stat screen appeared, the two experience he had gathered from the boars dropping to 0. But...what...what was going on? This wasn't supposed to happen! Raz had said he could get double...

Wait...Raz. That guy had set him up, hadn't he? Gritting his teeth, Shadow growled. "That lying son of a..."

From atop a nearby roof, Raz hollered in laughter at the sight of Shadow being arrested and being dragged off to prison. "That's what you get when you don't do what I say," he said with a chuckle as he got to his feet. "Now that that's over, let's go slay some boars."


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter brought to you by Razamataz22, ShadowMajin, Serena Darien and Sailor Saiyan.**

**Disclaimer: We do not own anything related to the .hack franchise.**

...

After having to fight a man whose sole reason for being alive was to provide a capture mission, hunting and killing wild boars was easy for Raz. To say it was easy though was a bit of a lie, these things didn't have much in the way of any attack or skill but they were persistent, of that he had to give them credit. Around him lay the lifeless bodies of four boars, two of them providing him with the bacon that Shadow had talked about. He hadn't taken the time to see what they actually did in restorative properties since he knew what was hopefully coming next.

Each of the boars had given him a single experience point and if his stats were correct, he only needed to slay one more before he gained a much sought after level. More than anything, it was in the hope that when he gained a level, his health would be restored and he desperately needed it. The boars had dealt him a great deal of damage added on to what the thief had done to him. Had he been only halfway towards gaining a level he would have used his potion as quick as he could, although he still wasn't sure what the green liquid would taste like.

Raz snapped back to reality as the boar charged at him and he leapt to the side, avoiding the attack with ease but unable to react quickly enough to get a counter strike in before it got out of range. Part of him wished that he carried a weapon that was longer than his wrist but knew that he couldn't change anything at the moment. Focusing on the task at hand, he braced himself as the boar came charging at him once again. Opting to stand his ground, Raz bent his nears as the boar got close.

With a sickening thud the boar rammed into his stomach, causing a mixture of blood and bile to escape from Raz's lips, however as his arms held on to the boars sides, his feet skidded painfully through the ground but he stood tall. With an outraged war cry he pried the knife from its sheath before he drove it into the throat of the boar, twisting it awkwardly as the boar squealed loudly before going silent, dropping to the ground.

With a relieved sigh, he absorbed the experience that had fallen from the boar's body. In an instant, he prayed that his health would remarkably regenerate itself but to his dismay everything still felt the same. "Really," he said as he pulled out his inventory, making a quick check around him to ensure that nothing was going to attack him out of the blue before he opened it up. Flicking across to stats, he saw that while his level had ascended and he had a new ability point to place on his technique tree and a statistic point to level up one his attributes. It was the low number six that represented his remaining health which scared him however.

"Great," Raz muttered as he went back to the inventory page and looked at the two pieces of bacon he had collected. Clicking on them, he was happy to see them appear in his hand, already sizzling as if the transportation from the scroll had managed to fry them up to perfection. "Hope this works," he said as he hacked into the chunks of meat, satisfyingly smiling as his stomach was filled. Returning his attention back to his inventory scroll, swiping back across to the stats page he was relieved to see that the bacon had restored four points of health each, giving him a total of fourteen out of a potential thirty-five given that his health had increased with his level. Not only that, but he still felt as if nothing had been healed at all.

"Pain doesn't go away that easily," he said to nobody in particular as he rolled up the scroll and shoved it into his back pocket once again. It made sense in a way, while his physical injuries may have miraculously healed through the eating of bacon, if only slightly, the pain was still there in his mind. "Guess I just need to wait until I feel better," he said with a shrug of the shoulders as he went back towards town. Raz recalled that in a few games he had played, health restored itself slowly over time, undoubtedly the same system would be in store here. The length of time it would take to fully recover though was undeterminable.

With a defeated sigh, he made his way back towards town, running his fingers through his hair. It would be dangerous for him to fight anything else alone, he knew what it felt like to be damaged, he didn't want to know what it felt like for his health to drop to zero. Turning back towards town, he made his way back into the safety of the city walls before he inspected his statistics again. "Let's see, what I want to increase," he muttered as he looked up and down the list. "Guess avoiding damage is better than receiving damage this early on," he said before he increased his speed skill. Sliding across to his abilities, he surveyed what he could increase. He had the choice between another increase to his archery ability or... "Keen sense: Allows the hunter to use his surroundings to better keep track of his target," he said as he read the ability. "Better than the other one," he said with a shrug as the 'Keen Sense' ability flashed once before gaining its colour. Rolling up his inventory, Raz hadn't even noticed that as he had kept moving he had returned to the opening portal where a golden light revealed another person entering the world.

...

Rose examined the new video game she'd gotten from her older cousin. Unlike the others, this one was brand new, which signalled that he was afraid to try it. Those were the only kind of games he left in the pristine condition. Rose herself had only recently become a gamer. At thirteen she'd been horrible and hardly ever played, but thanks to a good friend of hers she'd been gaming for about a year now and had become pretty damn good at it, too. She rapidly clicked through the terms of acceptance and all that stuff, the stuff no one ever read.

"Alright, game on!" she said out loud as she inserted the disk and slipped on the headgear.

'_Username?'_ the game asked. She thought about this for a moment.

"Serena Darien1613." she replied. She continued on to the character customization part and picked things carefully. She made sure she had good sturdy clothes, including shoes. She made herself an innocent looking girl. With black, wavy pig-tails, and wide brown eye's she looked like any other normal 14 year old child. She purposely made herself at the smaller height of 4'9 so people would underestimate her. The clothes were rather smartly picked as well: a simple red tunic and black tights underneath. Giving her character another once over, she was satisfied that anyone else playing would think she was either a weakling or one of the created game villagers.

'_Character customization complete?' _the game asked in a monotone voice.

"Yes." she confirmed.

_'Please choose a primary and secondary class.' _

"Two classes, huh?" She'd heard about that but hadn't believed it at the time.

"Primary class, Archer and Secondary class, Shadow Warlock."

'_Confirm primary class, Archer and secondary class, Shadow Warlock?' _

"Yes." Rose stated clearly. She saw the original screen disappear and in its place was a different world. Humming to herself she began to explore. Travelling down a simple dirt path with pebbles scattered around she noticed a figure up ahead. They were headed away from her so she ran to catch up, calling out at the same time.

"Hey!"

Raz stopped as he heard the voice call out to him. He had tried to make himself look like an NPC but it didn't seem to have worked at all. Turning around, he watched as a young girl ran up towards him, although he wasn't sure if that was just the character design or if they really were young, unless he asked it was impossible to tell. That aside, he knew he had to find some way to test whether or not this girl felt pain but didn't particularly want to bury his fist into her stomach, a couple of nearby guards had looked at him threateningly when he had done it to Shadow the first time. "Afternoon," he said, tipping an imaginary hat as they caught up to him, breathing heavily.

She raced down the path after the figure. They must have heard her, seeing as he turned around. SD studied the man, and even though she only came up to the middle of his chest, she wasn't scared. It was obvious that he was confused as to whether she was an NPC or an actual player, which pleased her immensely. That meant her disguise worked. Fantastic. She decided to play up the innocence her feature's already gave her. In her sweetest voice she said, "Can you tell me where I can get a quest?" He looked surprised, but then quickly recomposed his face into a smile.

"A little quick off the mark aren't you, you've been in here a full minute and already you're chasing quests," Raz said with a smirk.

SD shrugged. "Nah, I just want some experience. Hey what's your name anyway?"

"Raz," he said as he ran his fingers through his hair. "And you?"

"Serena Darien1613." she replied with cool indifference. "SD, for short."

"Cheers, if you want quests they're down that way," he said chucking his thumb over his shoulder. "As a warning though, if you run into a person called Shadow, be careful. He went overboard on a simple mission earlier and killed a NPC so who knows what'll happen if you run into him."

SD smiled knowingly. "Oh don't worry about me." she saluted using two fingers, then headed in the direction he'd pointed. "Thanks for the advice though."

"Anytime," said Raz not bothering to turn around to face her. Instead of testing to see whether or not she felt pain he preferred to let her figure it out herself, at least that way he wouldn't get blamed for it. Heading down a side street, he decided that he needed to find an inn of some kind for the night instead of waiting for the sun to set and then looking for a place. Once he'd done that he'd figure out the next thing to do.

...

Plopping her purse, Algebra book and lunchbox on her bed, Alaine stripped her black Las Vegas jacket off and added it to the pile of things. Looking up, she grinned like a mad man when she saw an unopened box resting in the middle of her bed. Grabbing the box, she ripped it open and dumped the contents out onto her bed. Picking up the headset, the installation CD and instructions, Alaine shoved everything off of her bed and onto the floor then grabbed her laptop. Quickly booting it up, she inserted the disk and began to install it. Not even bothering to read the terms and conditions or anything else that had come with the game, she put the headset on, eager to be submerged in the fantasy world.

"_Username please,"_ the monotone mechanical voice said.

Thinking for a moment, she decided to use a name from two of her favourite animes. "Sailor Saiyan," she said, smiling.

She loved the character she created. She had curly dark blonde hair reaching to her butt and big, bright ocean-like eyes that changed from blue to green and always seemed to have a hint of grey. She was just above average height, and healthily skinny. She wore a simple blue knee length summer dress that had unnoticeable pockets built in, along with half inch heels and knee-high white leg warmers with matching gloves.

After she confirmed her character, the annoying monotone voice said, _"Please choose a primary and secondary class."_

_Wow, you really do get two classes, _she though, grinning to herself. "Primary class, Harvest Cleric. Secondary class, Twin Blade," she replied.

"_Primary class, Harvest Cleric and second class, Twin Blade. Confirm this is correct."_

Alaine was ready to shoot the computer from her impatiens. "Correct," she said.

"_Activation confirmed. You are now entering The World."_

Alaine grinned madly as the world around her went black. When she woke up, the grin was still on her face as she took in her surroundings. All of the buildings were made of wood, the ground unpaved and sandy, littered with small stones and pebbles. Bending down, she pick up a little of the sand, letting it flow through her fingers. _This is so lifelike, _she said, amazed at how real everything looked. _This game by far has the best graphics I've ever seen!_

_Maybe I should check out what I have... _She thought, and paused for a moment. _Wait, how do I access it? _Walking over to a nearby building, she slid down the side and stared straight ahead of her, thinking. _I wonder… _she thought, then grinned again. Clearing her throat, she said, "Items." Nope, that wasn't it. "Things?" she tried, starting to feel stupid. Nada. "Show me my crap!" Nope, but her stupidity made her giggle. "Guhh…. Inventory?"

Bingo! A scroll appeared from thin air and down into her hands. Opening it, she saw a blank area, and under that were her blades. Tapping them on the scroll, the two blades along with a sheath appeared. Grabbing it, she put the sheath around her back and clipped it in place. Next to where her blades were was a potion and a small number in the right hand corner showed her amount of gold. Tapping on the gold, she grabbed the sack and placed it in her pockets.

Seeing the word 'Statistics', she poked it warily. Her inventory disappeared and a list of her stats to showed up. She cringed when she saw the little amount of health that she was given to start out with, her amount of special points not being much better. Looking at the rest of her stats, she found she had a 3 next to her Intelligence and a 5 next to speed. Glancing at the 15 in the corner, she played around with her stats until she was satisfied.

Deciding to wander around for a bit before she got serious, she started down one of the paths. All of the NPCs were chattering amongst themselves, not paying much attention to her. _Huh, _she thought. _I wonder when I'm going to run into someone that'll actually talk to me._

She continued down the path, looking at the store names and trying to remember her surroundings for the future. Spending too much time looking at one particular store, she bumped into someone. Looking down, she saw a little girl who was on the verge of tears.

Crouching down to her level, Sailor asked, "Are you okay?"

The little girl sniffed and shook her head. "What's wrong?" Sailor probed.

Sniffing again, the little girl said, "I lost my kitty. Can you help me find her?" she asked, her big teary eyes staring up at Sailor.

"Sure!" Sailor said. Deciding to check out her Inventory again, she pulled the scroll out of her pocket and opened it. The blank space she had seen earlier now held her quest information. Tapping it, she received another scroll. Opening it, she saw a picture of the cat- err, kitten- and read the little bit of information given before placing the new scroll on top for her inventory. _Please don't make me look like an idiot… _she thought, pressing the scroll down, causing it to disappear and Sailor to sigh in relief.

_Okay kitty. I'm coming for you,_ she thought, the mad grin making its way to her face once again.

...

The stone room was dark and dank, creating a dreary atmosphere. This was the city dungeon and ShadowMajin was not happy.

Damn him. Damn that Raz guy to hell. He wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him! In hindsight, Shadow should've checked the mission objectives first and not rely on the word of a guy he had just met and been physically assaulted by. But that's what he got for being nice.

Well then, no more mister nice Shadow.

Unfortunately, instead of hanging out here for his entire sentence, the young man had tried logging out once more and hope that the time spent in prison only counted was just off the internal game clock. However, he only received the error window again, as well as the two times since. That had left him sitting there for the last five hours with nothing more than the boring grey stone and wooden bed frame as company. The lack of log out success was starting to become discerning.

How long had it been since his first failed log out attempt? Too long for an error like this to go unfixed, right? So why hadn't it been fixed? Were there specific places a player had to go before they could leave or something? If so, why didn't the help menu mention anything like that. All he could find was the usual "go to log out button." Well, he had tried that and it wasn't working. One of the moderators needed to fix that soon. It was starting to become annoying, even alarming.

All of this led to an increasingly frustrated player who wanted nothing more than to smash something. Between the log out glitch, Raz, and all the time he had to sulk about things, his patience was wearing thin. If he had the strength, the walls would've been broken down a long time ago. How much time was left? Way too much. He wanted out _now_.

And when he did, something was going to be hurting. Or someone.

That was when the sound of footsteps echoing off the stonewalls reached him. Someone was coming down the corridor, maybe someone that could get him out of here. Standing up, Shadow approached the bars and grasped them with his hands, leaning his head side to side to get a look at his potential saviour.

A man appeared soon, one that Shadow recognized as the jailor. He was a heavy-set man, his bulky frame seeming to be held in by his leather armour. The NPC logo was hovering over the characters head as the jailor paid him no mind, approaching the cell purposefully and then walking passed it.

"Hey! Wait," Shadow called out, causing the jailor to halt. "Think you could let me out of here?"

"Your sentence has not been finished," the NPC replied gruffly.

"How much longer then?"

"Five more hours. Now settle down. I have to finish my patrol."

Shadow sagged at the news. Five hours? There was no way in hell he could sit that much longer! He needed to get out now! There had to be some way he could convince this guy! "What about if I trade you something?" he tried, watching the jailor look towards him at his summons.

"You cannot trade your time away. You must remain in your cell until your sentence has been served."

No trading? What the hell! This game was seriously starting to be more trouble than it was worth and Shadow had gotten it for free! Shadow quickly brought up his inventory menu and searched for something he could entice this guy with, despite his firm denial. "You sure? I've got some bacon you might like."

"You cannot trade your time away. You must remain in your cell until your sentence has been served."

"What about health potions? I've a couple of those I'm not using."

"You cannot trade your time away. You must remain-"

"In my cell, yeah, yeah," Shadow interrupted. Almost frantically he searched over his inventory until he eyed his gold stash. "How about gold?"

That got the jailor's attention. "How much?"

"All that I have on me," Shadow replied immediately, wincing a moment later. Haggling had never been his forte and who knew if you could set a price within this game. Regardless, he'd have to restore his quickly emptying purse once he was out of here, assuming the jailor accepted his offer.

"I believe your sentence has been served," the jailor announced, much to Shadow's relief. Reaching to his belt, the jailor removed a set of keys to unlock the cell. In the meantime, Shadow angled his body away, reaching into his robe to pull out his money back. Making sure the jailor wasn't watching, Shadow snatched a couple of coins from the bag and hid them in his robe. Facing the jailor, he then held the bag in front of him, approaching the open door.

"First, hand over the money," the jailor demanded.

Shadow frowned. "At least let me into the doorway. Then I'll hand you the money."

This caused the jailor to scowl, but he made no more to shut the cell. Quickly, Shadow put himself in the path of the jail door, holding the money bag out to the NPC. The jailor snatched the purse from his hand and Shadow quickly moved out of the cell. The door shut behind him a second later, causing the young man to let out a sigh of relief.

That relief disappeared a moment later. Steeling his face, Shadow began marching down the corridor, a purpose in his stride.

He had some work to do.

...

"Greedy son of a bitch," cursed Raz as he made his way back to the farm for what would be the third time that day. Having found the inn where he would spend the night, Raz thought that it would be safe to not run into anybody else at the mission area, he had gone to take on a challenge. He knew with his limited array of health he wasn't going to go tackle something of a higher calibre. Be that as it may, he wasn't going to go chasing after some little girl's cat either. So Raz had found himself ridding a farm of crows for some needy old farmer. That in itself had been enough of a challenge, while the crows were weak they did enough damage to make him contemplate using his health potion. It was not to be however as he absorbed the last of the experience they gave before he found himself working for the farmer yet again, this time to harvest some corn which he did so with ease.

When he returned the corn he got given a cob for free, something which he quickly mauled into without any stress, thankful to watch his health climb slowly, stopping at twelve points of health, a little over a third of his maximum. The farmer offered him another quest and while Raz didn't particularly want to keep working for the same man if there was another rejuvenating reward at the end he was more than happy to. That didn't mean that he couldn't curse him from behind to relieve his stress. This time he had been given an empty bucket and was told to milk the cows and that if he brought the milk to the man he would be rewarded with a jar full of the white liquid goodness. Therefore, Raz had found himself walking up the hill towards the farm once again, the empty bucket sitting idly in his hand.

The thought of squeezing on a cow's udder wasn't a disturbing one to Raz, having grown up in a farm area. While he had never had a cow, he had seen enough sheep and deer to last a life time. As he got to level footing and the farmhouse came into view, he passed it by on the way to the shed where the farmer had told him the cows were kept. As he walked down the small narrow pathway between the grass fields that seemed to stretch on, his eye caught a movement off to the side and his head quickly snapped around in a desperate attempt to see what it was. As soon as he had spotted it however he had lost it. With a shrug of the shoulders, he kept pressing onwards and pushed open the barn door.

Inside the rickety building, there were a dozen cows standing in stalls, a small stool sitting by either of them. Raz had to smirk at the idea of it, having a number of cows always ready to be milked. Undoubtedly this would be one of the standard missions that the earlier players would take on, and considering the number of people who would start playing on a daily basis, it was clear that a single cow would never have been enough. "Alright Bessy," he said absentmindedly as he sat beside the nearest cow, placing the bucket under the udder. "Show us what you got."

Milking a cow wasn't nearly as disgusting as he thought it would be as jets of milk shot into the bottom of the bucket. Humming a little tune, he barely noticed as the level in the bucket started to rise. This wasn't such a bad mission, all he did was sit around and mind his own business, tugging away at a cow's udder. With the bucket half full, Raz took a quick look over his shoulder to make sure the coast was clear. He knew there were only a handful of people running around but it was more force of habit than anything. Ensuring that the coast was clear, he lifted the bucket to his lips and began to drink.

According to the farmer, like the corn, the milk had restorative abilities and as the liquid flowed down his throat, Raz couldn't feel any different but knew that his health points would be rising closer to their maximum. It didn't particularly taste like milk out of the carton but he didn't really care at this point, he was thirsty and it was quenching said thirst, which was all that was to it. Trickles of liquid fell from his cheeks as he tilted the bucket further upwards until not a drop remained at the base of the bucket. With a satisfied breath, he placed the bucket underneath the cow and began to milk again. With a single hand, he skimmed through his inventory and couldn't help but smile to see that his health bar was at its highest. Not only that but he was nearly a quarter of the way towards level three after slaying the crows from earlier. "Sweet," he said as he focused back on the task at hand.

Nearly fifteen minutes had passed by the time the bucket was full and with a slight grunt, Raz picked it up and held it by his side, some of the milk spilling over the side. Focusing his attention outside, he began heading back towards town when his eyes picked up movement once again, this time a lot closer. Cautiously, he placed the bucket on the ground and pulled out his knife, not wanting to be caught off guard. He hadn't really gone that far out of town, but that didn't mean that the creatures out here couldn't do some damage.

A sound he didn't want to hear rang out and he turned around to see his bucket overturned, a small pixie floating there giggling at their prank. "You got to be kidding me," said Raz as he looked at all his work go to waste. His attention shifted as the pixie floated towards him, before chucking a small fireball directly into his face.

"Piece of shit!" he called out as he started chasing the pixie with malice, listening to it giggle as it flew away out of reach. The fireball hadn't hurt that much but it was more the action which had taken place which really pissed Raz off.

With a snide smirk, he reached out, his fingers scrapping the back of the fairies wings before he felt the ground beneath him crumble. Raz screamed in fear as he fell down the pitfall, coming to a painful landing several metres below. Lying on the ground, he coughed and spluttered as he grumbled a number of curses under his breath. Pushing himself to his hands and knees, he looked up to see the fairy weave some magic and close up the hole he had fallen through. Undoubtedly it was a trap designed to split up groups of players and force them into unsettling situations.

Thankfully, even though there was no natural light in the cave, the designers had created it so that the roof shone dimly, allowing players to see. Later on Raz imagined that in order to get through caves and dungeons you'd need to carry a torch as to see properly, as this was potentially the first designed cave, the creators wouldn't be so cruel. As he got to his feet and dusted himself off, he noticed that there was a treasure chest sitting next to him. "Shit, chests are only at the end of the cave," he cursed. Not only that, but he knew that the chests were guarded by the cave boss.

A soft thud echoed through the cave as Raz turned his attention forwards, swallowing nervously as a cave bear stalked towards him, drool falling from its lips as red demonic eyes stared at him with murderous intent. Awkwardly, he pulled out his knife and held it before him, not taking his eyes off the bear. These creatures were only meant to be taken on after the characters had gained the experience from killing all the other cave monsters. Somehow, the trap he had fallen to had dropped him off right at the end of the cave which left him with only one way out, and the exit was on the other side of the bear.

"This is going to hurt," said Raz as he crouched into a striking position as the bear gave a blood curdling roar before it started charging towards him. Despite that and even as the bear brought it's paw down to strike, not once did the smirk leave his face.

...

**Hope you enjoyed, leave a review and tell us what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: TDS does not own anything affiliated with .hack**

...

They were _**supposed**_ to launch 'The World' BETA edition game on Monday, and all the successful entries were to receive a copy, yet I had heard _**nothing**_.

"Cal! Get down here!" I heard my mother calling.

"Yes, Ma!" I replied with an exasperated sigh.

Every day, before school I would time the mail man's delivery. At 7:13am, he would stroll up on his bicycle and gently set it against our front wall; 7:14am, he'd reach and rummage through his shoulder carry-on bag; and 7:15, the moment I'd been waiting for, he'd begin his evenly paced sixteen step walk, up the porch and to my front door.

Unbeknownst to him I would sit by the window of my bedroom and watch, just waiting for his arrival; stalking him like a bird of prey, eyeing his bag full of goodies, and then ever so quietly I'd listen. I'd listen for the sound of mail dropping through the letterbox, just anticipating the day he would bring it. The single thing I had been waiting for since I laid eyes on it at the annual CyberConnect Corporation fair.

'The World 2.0'

It was every nerd's dream…it was my dream…

But there was always nothing. I had almost given up hope completely when…

"Cal!" my mother called again, ruining my train of thought.

Wiping the saliva trail from the side of my mouth, I begrudgingly went downstairs to see what she wanted. Couldn't this wait? I was actually in the middle of foraging through the forum chats, the jealousy within me only building as I saw the number of successful applicants increase day by day yet I could not be amongst them.

_**Why? Why them and not me?**_

It frustrated me to no end. How many more people were getting their copies of 'The World' as my mother chose this opportune moment to call me downstairs? And not only that, she completely ruined my daydream only to remind me of how much my reality actually sucked.

Dragging my feet against the floor, I finally made it to the kitchen where she stood with her back towards me, preparing dinner.

"Yes Ma?" I said quietly.

Hearing my voice, she instantly spun around and embraced me, taking the extra time to hold onto my shoulders so she could look directly into my brown eyes as she spoke.

"Oh Calvin, there you are! Do you know I've been calling you for a while now? Just what were you doing up there?" my mother's voice rang in my ear.

"Nothing Ma, just checking on the forums," I replied sighing, my mood only darkening further, she just had to go and remind me of my current predicament once more.

All over the world, kids just like me, were receiving their beta edition game yet I was not one of them. The feeling of being let down and betrayed stung my chest, and with each reminder, I only found it ten times harder to hold onto the hope that I too would be chosen.

"Nerd," my idiot sister, who was sitting at the kitchen counter -eavesdropping-, took the opportune moment to sketchily cough and whisper this under her breath.

Turning to glare at her, I chose not to retaliate but simply to ignore any illegitimate sounds she made, after all _**animals **_don't talk.

She continued to pull faces at me nonetheless, all behind my mother's back. She called me a nerd, but what did she know anyway? God, I hated her sometimes. She just didn't get the complexity that went into making 'The World'. There wasn't just the awesome graphics there was all the schematics, character personality traits, game development, challenge…the list just goes on. It's like just when you think you've grasped the layout of entire game and have found the way to the exit, they switch it up and you're left guessing again; or back at level one in my experience. It's pure genius, and I'm just itching to get my hands on 2.0. I just have to test it out; it will be the game of the year!

"That's nice honey. How was school?" my mother continued, completely dismissing my anguish and turning her concentration back to the food on the stove, with the occasional peep back at me from the corner of her eye.

"Fine, Ma. Can I go to my room now?" I pleaded. I had much better things to do than to stand around awkwardly in my kitchen talking to my mother about school.

"No. You just stay right there, young man. This is family time." My mother replied annoyingly.

Sighing, I walked over to the kitchen counter and sat down beside my sister, laying my head on its cold marble surface as my frustration continued to build. I could hear her snickering behind her hand, and even if I couldn't, the continuous jerky movements she was making would have given her away in a flash. She was really getting to me today so the moment my mother's eyes weren't on me I made a motion to push my sister off her chair and succeeded.

One mission down, one to go.

Now, think. Think. How can I get outta here? Got it! New tactic.

"Ma…that smells delicious. What is it?" I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster up.

"Oh this?" my mother gushed in appreciation, "It's this new recipe I'm trying out, chitlin soup and minced liver pie."

- Silence -

Both siblings exchanged but a single look before swallowing gravely. It would be another one of those '_**forced**_' meals, they had concluded.

Ever since their father had died in action, their mother had tried to provide alternate forms of love via cooking. Only sadly, unlike a normal mother who would bake chocolate cake one day and iced lemon cakes the next, theirs kept trying to be 'multicultural' as she termed it and wanted them to experience foods from the lands beyond.

But truth be told, she sucked at cooking. Now don't get me wrong there's _**nothing **_wrong with the odd fish and chips or curry, but chitlin soup? Come on, that's pushing it; there is no need to be that extravagant! Especially if chicken breast fillet were such a struggle…

Neither sibling could bear to break their mother's heart more than it had been already so each night they sucked it up and shoved down spoonfuls of food they didn't quite like for the sake of peace and happiness.

Quite the_** sacrifice.**_

"Okay…err- well Ma, I'm going to go to my room now,"

"Me too, I think I'm coming down with something…"

Said both children quickly in unison in a desperate joint attempt to escape the torture their mother was cooking up.

"Oh no, you poor thing! Mama will make you some extra chitlin soup! Then you'll be all fixed up!"

"Thanks…Ma, you always look after me." Cal's sister said begrudgingly.

Why couldn't her mother just take the hint! No one wanted any chitlin soup…

But nonetheless it was still too damn funny, I thought as I laughed openly at my sister's misfortune. Only my laughter was very short-lived as an elbow found its way directly into the side of my ribcage.

My sudden wheezing and clutching at my chest in desperation was sure to have made my sister happy if the smile on her face was any indication. To her, it probably sounded the same as an apology.

Jumping off the stool she sat on, she happily walked upstairs with a smug grin on her face yet all I could do is just watch her leave in agony.

Once the pain subsided and I could actually stand upright again without feeling like my entire lung had collapsed, I went to follow suit and leave. That sister of mine! Grr! She was going to get a piece of my mind today! But before I could even take one step out of the kitchen, my mother stopped me with yet another request.

"Oh, before you go Cal-"

"What?" I shouted.

"Check on your sister from time to time, please."

"Like hell I wi-…err-I mean, sure thing Ma." I said amending my sentence immediately. I didn't want any more chitlin soup either.

"Thank you. Oh! I almost forgot, silly me! This came in the post for you a few days ago! Got hidden under all that junk on the table there." My mother said as she casually nodded to the white envelope on the counter and moved to retrieve it.

Following her line of sight my eyes bulged open to new proportions. There in the top right corner of the letter was the official CyberConnect Corporation Logo stamp. I couldn't believe it! Grabbing the letter from my mother's hands and flipping it over, I scanned its contents, analyzing its size. There was definitely a solid, large, hard package within the parcel. It had to be it! I checked again and again and it really was my name on the envelope! I wasn't hallucinating! My moment had arrived, I screamed in joy!

"Cal! What's wrong honey?"

"It's here! I won!" I shouted with glee.

"Won what?"

"The game! I won the game?"

"That's lovely!" my mother said clasping her hands together in my direction.

"Love you Ma, bye Ma." I said quickly, hugging my mother in delight before rushing out of the kitchen and up the stairs with lightning speed.

"Game! Game! Game!" I chanted as I passed each step, much to my sister's irritation.

She could hear his annoying voice above the sound of her iPod headphones, and according to her, it was ruining her mojo.

"Shut up twerp!" she shouted.

"Game! Game! Game!" I continued. This was my moment and I wasn't going to let anyone spoil it!

_This is my moment. I've waited all my life, I can tell it's time. Drifting away, I'm one with the sunset. I have become alive. I wish that I could have this moment for life._

The lyrics played in my mind and I began to sing from the top of my lungs as I reached the top of the staircase. They summarized every feeling that ran within me as I clutched onto the game. No one could steal my moment for life!

- Singing -

"Eurgh!" Her brother was so goddamn annoying she thought as she stood up and slammed her bedroom door closed with vigorous force before jumping back onto her bed.

Reaching my room I opened the parcel ever so carefully so I could frame the envelope later, and pulled the solid game plastic casing from it. 'The World 2.0', it was here, it was finally here, and it was all mine. I could hardly contain my excitement as I traced the letters over and over with the tip of my fingertips.

As the parcel envelope fell to the floor in my concentration, a piece of paper flew out of it. It wafted down to the ground and managed to catch my attention from the corner of my eye. Stooping down to reach it in curiosity whilst still maintaining a firm grip on the game as if it were to disappear entirely in but a few moments, I picked it up.

Huh? It's blank? Turning the paper over, I realized it was a letter.

The letter read:

_To Whom It May Concern:_

_Congratulations on being selected to trial our BETA version of 'The World'. Your expertise, gaming skills, years of faithful service and dedication have come to the attention of our team and we would like to provide you with this exclusive copy of the game._

_We hope you will find it satisfying and will continue to promote the CyberConnect Corporation with your great reviews and recommendations._

_Regards,_

_CyberConnect Corporation_

_- Therefore, those who wish for happiness must have a dream. That is why dreams are as important as the entire universe. -_

"AHHHHHHHH! A letter too?" I screamed! This completely sucky day had turned itself around in only a few minutes! It was now the best day of my entire life!

Or at least _**was**_ the best day of my entire life, till my sister –one- came barging into my room, sure as hell without permission; and then –two- as if that wasn't bad enough, without warning she socked me clear in the stomach!

"Make another irritating noise again and I'll have you walking like a penguin for a week." She threatened before storming out of my room without another word.

That was _**twice**_ today she had hurt me and got away with it, I thought, rubbing my sore abdomen. How dare she! Picking my game up from the floor, I inspected it carefully, before rubbing it with my shirt to make sure there was no damage on the casing. Damn my sister and her overall annoyingness! I'll get her later for that! But as for now, all I need to do is play the shit out of this game!

Sitting down behind my computer, I took the game into my hands. Raising it up and taking the time to examine its beauty, I exhaled deeply. I began to prepare myself mentally and physically for the single moment I would be as close to paradise as I could ever get, being that I didn't believe in God.

My hands began to shake and tremble in the excitement as I unwrapped the thin cover of plastic over the case and popped it open. Placing my index finger inside the hole of the disk and lifting it out, I put it into the disk drive of my computer before gazing at the screen in awe and anticipation.

'Windows Alert: Do you wish to allow this file?'

"YES! YES!" I blurted out and hastily clicked allow, followed by run before waiting for all the necessary plug-ins to be installed. Glasses on, headphones on, volume turned all the way up, and hands at the ready. I was in gaming mode.

'The World 2.0' appeared on the screen in a flash and as I moved my cursor to "Load New Game', before I could even click, I heard my mother screeching my name from downstairs once more.

"Shit!" I jumped up, startled. "For goodness sake! Couldn't this woman just wait for me to even load the game up before she started her pointless calling again? Fuck!" I mumbled grumpily.

"Yes Ma!" I called out, removing my headphones, and throwing them on the seat in irritation. I stomped all the way down the stairs, cursing my bad luck.

_**Was there no justice in the world?**_

"CAAAAAL!" I screamed. Storming into his room, getting ready to plant my foot straight into his gonads; but upon entering his room, I found it empty. Lucky son of a…I thought, spinning around to return to my sanctuary of peace.

Suddenly a sharp flash on his computer screen caught my attention. He's watching porn? This is too good to be true, just wait till I tell Mum! I thought as the screen continued to flash. But as I moved in closer for a better look, I saw that it wasn't porn but rather that stupid game Cal had been going on about for months.

"The World 2.0, the best thing this planet has ever seen!" I said mimicking my brother.

"What a _**loser**_! It was just a game." I said.

Suddenly an idea came to mind. Smirking, I knew exactly what I could do to piss Cal off. Play this before him! The look of shame and betrayal when he realized I touched let alone played this game before he did would be priceless! Then to imagine the amount of blackmail I could pull for not spilling the beans to any of his nerdy friends at school…

Ha! What a golden opportunity I had stumbled upon! Thank you baby Jesus, thank you World 2.0! I thought deviously.

After all, how long could it possibly take to move up a level or something and even that would irk him for months! Intertwining my fingers and stretching them out horizontally in front of me, I was ready.

Let the games begin!

Quickly sitting down on his chair, I put the headphones on and focused in on the screen. 'Load New Game' seemed about right. But wait? Where were the instructions? Oh forget it, I had aced Super Mario Bros. a few years back, how bad could this lame thing really be?

Clicking the button, a new screen came up.

'Enter Username: …'

Username…username, I thought. What should I call myself?

HaloGoddess? Geekfreak? Nerdqueen5000?

Okay, I'm just trolling now, but what a puzzling thought. Well…my name is Adelaide, so I suppose I could go with that? But calling yourself your _**name**_ in a _**game**_ is _**lame**_!

Triple rhyme, I thought, making myself laugh and snort uncontrollably before I realized what I was doing and stopped myself immediately. God, I'm becoming more and more like Cal by the minute, that's the sort of stupid thing he would say! Maybe it's this darn game. It's changing me and I haven't even gotten to the game part yet!

Right, I can play this game once and once only, I swore to myself. I valued my brain cells and sanity in equal measure. And even they weren't worth the sacrificing for the pure laughter I would gain at brother's expense. _**Nothing **_was worth that if this was the cost.

"_One _time and I'm done." I repeated to myself.

Right. Name. Focusing on the task at hand I concentrated once more. Nerdqueen5000 clearly wasn't going to work, so how about…a play-on from my name?

Adelaide…LaideLaide…Ladylaide! I got it! LadyLaide! That has got to be my username! Patting myself on the back for my efforts on such a cracking username, I keyed in the appropriate letters and pressed next.

LadyLaide did have a ring to it, mysterious yet so obvious at the same time. Pure genius if I do say so myself, I thought, smirking.

'Male or female?'

That's what the next screen asked me. Grinning, I briefly considered being a boy but quickly rid myself of the thought when an image of my brother entered my mind.

Never in my life did I ever want to look like him. Eww…I shook my head hard to clear that train of thought and selected the female option. And at last I finally reached the character configuration screen.

Now for the fun part! Tomboy, girly girl, action fighter, whore...

What should I look like?

The choices were _**endless**_...

...

As soon as the fourteen-year-old brunette got home she ran to her Mac. With a big box cradled in her arms she sat carefully in front of her laptop. "Kathy, you are one lucky girl!" she told herself cheerfully.

About a week ago she had sent in an application to beta the new version of The World. Not only did she get to beta it and try it out before it was released to the public, she got it for FREE! Excitedly Kathy pulled the console out of the box and plugged everything in. Waiting for it to boot up and download she decided to read over the upgrades. "This new version of the world has better sound and surrounding quality, and we have done everything in our power to make it more lifelike. The World is now able to make you feel as though you are really a part of this world with these new upgrades blah blah blah."

Throwing down the pamphlet she looked to the screen to see the random things the company couldn't be held responsible and the rules I was supposed to reside by while in the game. With a few clicks I was passed the boring stuff and into what I got this for!

"_Username." _A voice said as I put on the sunglass-looking head device. Hmmm... What to use what to use... I finally decided on my usual online alias.

"Kay Dawn." She remembered making up Kay only about a year ago when she had first started playing in The World. Kay was not only Kathy's online name, but also an entirely different person. Same voice. Same body. Same looks. Different name, different personality, different thought process, and basically everything Kathy wanted to be, but was too scared to be.

Bringing her thoughts back to herself Kay started making her ideal body. She had long, curly brown hair, about at her shoulders, and hazel eyes that changed color on a daily basis. One of her eyes had a splotch of red in it for whatever reason. She was average height, unlike Kathy, and had a slightly larger than average bust. She was slim, but a healthy kind of slim, not like those girls at her school who starved themselves and became bulimic just to be skinny. Her face was nothing remarkable, but not exactly ordinary. Not exactly what was considered beautiful or hot, yet attractive enough to use it against someone if she tried.

"Alright, now that I have her body done I just gotta pick some clothes," Kay thought. "Let's do this."

The first thing she picked was a strapless black tube top and a black leather jacket that ended half way down her back. Her pants were just a pair of black cargo pants that weren't too baggy. The teen stopped for a second, thinking about whether or not she wanted shoes. Deciding on yes, she chose a pair of black leather moccasins. To finish off the look she picked out a pair of Aviator sunglasses and plopped them on her head.

_"Character customization complete?" _

"Yeah, I guess I'm done."

_"Please choose a primary and secondary class."_

Without stopping to even think about it Kay picked her two favorite classes, "Macabre Dancer first class. Twin Blades second class."

_"Confirm, first class Macabre Dancer and second class Twin Blades?"_

"Confirm."

Her body felt numb as she was integrated into the game. Once all of her consciousness was sucked in she felt the familiar tingling she knew from past times playing.

Off to her right were trees, and on her left was a small village. A faint noise caught her attention as she surveyed her surroundings. A... humming? No... buzzing? Suddenly with a start she recognized it as the whine of mosquitoes. One of the annoying pests landed on her forehead and bit into her skin.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed, smacking herself in the face. 'Wait... ouch? but... I'm not supposed to feel anything..."

Now thoroughly confused she wandered towards the village. 'Maybe another beta player will be here...'

After not finding another real person she started walking down the dirt path she arrived on and strolled in the direction she hoped was another, bigger town where she could find someone. What felt like an hour of walking later she noticed a big prison in the distance.

...

A teenager snorted as he twirled the back cover of the disc in between his hardened fingers. Of course they claimed to take the player into a brand new world, they always did; Luke had seen them all.

Luke had started gaming at age eight, simply having nothing better to do. Then he hit number one in a few stat boards in a few games and _boom_. Offers started coming in, left, right and center. He was paid to play god damn video games, it was a brilliant job... but so god darn boring.

These video games were getting old fast, it was one after another. Nothing new, just the same old same old. Sighing to himself, Luke inserted this disc into his desktop. He skimmed through the terms and conditions with an expert eye as quickly as he could, before agreeing.

However to his surprise, another set of terms and conditions popped up. Quickly reading through them, he clicked agree... only for another one to pop up.

He continuously clicked agree, getting irritated quite quickly. Finally with perhaps some luck, the game began to install.

"_Username?"_

"Kakarot Son, of course."

_"Kakarot Son Of Course, is that correct?"_

"No..." He deadpanned, that was a little ridiculous.

_"Username?"_

"Kakarot Son!" He almost yelled at the damn thing this time, he was getting quite restless.

Luke sighed heavily, attempting to calm his now agitated self. He carefully selected the appearance of his typical online alias.

Once he was done, he took a quick second to appreciate the graphics of the game. His spiky blond hair, flowed upward in a wide gravity-defying pattern, save for the five bangs which hung loosely across his forehead.

He chose merciless blue eyes. This particular pair seemed to be lacking a soul, he didn't know quite why, but he chose them.

Finally he dressed himself in his typical black garb, it didn't quite fit him but he couldn't find much else. A black long sleeved shirt, along with simple black combat-safe pants.

_"Character customization complete?" _

"Yea... complete. Just hurry up, I've got to grab something to eat soon."

_"Please choose a primary and secondary class."_

Looking at the instruction manual within the game, Luke quickly chose. This was so damn slow!

"Best make me a Blademaster... and a Tribal Grappler."

_"Confirm-"_

"Yea, confirmed... just hurry up!"

_"Activation confirmed, you are now entering The World."_

Suddenly the whole world went blank to Luke, as he rapidly tried to grasp the situation.

"Wha-"

He didn't have time to finish his sentence as a sudden flash enveloped his body.

...

Luke... Kakarot couldn't believe it. He was in a brand new world! Not some cheap holographic rip off, but what looked like a completely new world.

The grass was green, and quite damp; meaning that it had recently rained. He was quite surprised when he realized that he could feel it's lushness. Not see, but actually... feel it.

Naturally he wasn't wearing any kind of footwear, he didn't actually expect to 'feel' anything. Kakarot had thought that the character design would be for cosmetics only.

But bleh, it didn't matter; he was walking on soft grass, not broken glass. It wasn't a big deal.. yet.

Fortune seemed to be on Kakarot's side as he noticed a large building, with the word 'General' carved boldly into the front of it. He'd found the games general store, easy.

He quickly walked towards the NPC Shopkeeper.

"Have you, by any chance, got some footwear?"

"Yes, combat leather boots for sale. Only 30 gold!"

"Fantastic! I'll take them in a size... ehh... what size am I in this world again?"

"What is your primary class, sir?"

"I'm... a Swordmaster, I think it was," Kakarot said, unsure.

"You must mean Blademaster, no?" The Non-Playing Character asked.

"Yeah that's it!"

Pulling out a pair of dark-blue boots behind him, the Shop keeper asked for the money.

"30 gold, please."

Kakarot fiddled around with his clothes, before blushing a deep red and rubbing the back of his head.

"You wouldn't know how to open my inventory by any chance, would you?" As if by magic a small scroll appeared in Kakarot's enclosed palm.

The Shop-keeper stared on unimpressed, as Kakarot unrolled the scroll and tapped the picture of golden coins. Instantly 50 gold coins appeared in his hands.

Quickly counting he handed the money over to the shop keeper, "there you are."

The NPC merely nodded as he handed Kakarot the boots. "A pleasure doing business with you sir."

Realizing that he had nowhere else to put his money, Kakarot asked the shop keeper if he knew how to put money back into his inventory.

"Sorry sir, I haven't a clue."

"Well then what do you think I should do? Just carry this money and lose it?" Kakarot almost lost his head.

"Well sir, perhaps you could buy something else. After all 20 gold is not that much."

"Hmm... you're right. Have you by any chance got any undershirts in stock?" He shivered, it sure was cold.

The shop keeper nodded, "30 gold."

Kakarot almost face vaulted. Trust his luck to leave him ten gold short... he couldn't leave his money floating around, so he needed to use it. But ironically enough, he couldn't use it because he didn't have enough.

Quickly noticing that the shop keeper had yet to put away the 30 gold coins he had used to by the boots, Kakarot distracted the NPC.

"On a side note, can I buy anything to boost my secondary ability?" Hook.

"And what might that be, sir?" Line.

"I'm a Tribe Gravveller, and sinker... He quickly snatched ten gold coins back.

"I'm afraid we don't currently have anything in stock currently. Other towns you may encounter may have a larger or smaller variety of items."

"Okay then, I think I'll just take the undershirt." Handing over the now-total of 30 coins, Kakarot smirked deviously. The foolish NPC had not noticed.

You had to be careful with these things, take too much and you're screwed, as he's sure to notice. Take too less and you don't have enough; meaning you'll have to take some more, which means there's a larger risk of getting caught. Kakarot seemed to have caught a lucky break this time, though.

The NPC handed over the blue undershirt, and placed it on top of the boots. "Please come again."

Snatching the two items, Kaka hurried out of the store. He continued to run on for about 30 meters, after which he came to a halt and hopped into his boots.

He tore of his black shirt, shivering as the cold hit him full force; before quickly putting on his new undershirt. With a lot less tension, he put his black shirt back on.

His stomach grumbled which caused him to look at his chest curiously, wondering how his virtual character knew that he was hungry.

...

**Hope you enjoyed. Please review and peace out.**


	4. Chapter 4

**This chapter is brought to you by: Shadow, Kay, Raz, Serena and Lady.**

**Disclaimer: Team Dragon Star is not affiliated with the .hack series in any way**

...

Free air never tasted so great. Shadow hadn't ever spent time in a prison, in game or out, and after sitting around for way too much time, he was ready to get on gaming. Or get out of the game, which ever came first. To be honest though, he was getting sick of this game considering the people he had met so far and being stuck in a cell with nothing to do. All of his experience was gone along with most of his money save for a couple coins he managed to hide. This had been a very bad experience so far.

Trudging through the street, his bad mood obvious to anyone who looked at him, Shadow made his way to the nearest city exit. No more city jobs, he was gonna stick to the country. Killing wild boars and eating bacon would provide a thin salve to his anger, but at least he would be taking his frustrations out on something he was allowed to kill.

However, it seemed his lonesome march wouldn't stay so lonely.

A girl was cautiously approaching him from behind, not knowing if he was friend or enemy. She took in his features from his face to his black and purple robes. Her eyes lingered on the scythe on his back. For all she knew he was one of those people who got on the game just to go around and kill random people. Man did she hate those people.

As the teen drew closer she pulled her twin blades out so she would be ready if he tried anything. "Hello? Are you and enemy or an ally?"

Shadow came to a stop and looked at the girl with a foreboding look. Seeing as there was an absence of the NPC logo above her head, she must've been an actually player. Oh. Joy.

"And what do you want," he stated rather than asked, an annoyed tone in his voice.

His reply seemed to agitate her. "Wow, what's got your boxers in a twist? Since you haven't attacked me I'm just guessing you aren't going to..."

Shadow raised an eyebrow. Boxers? Twist? Did people really say that nowadays? "I'm not in the mood for company, so sorry if I'm curt. It's been a very bad day."

Sighing, the girl stepped forward. Apparently she was about to ask him something she rather not have answered. Ugh, why bother asking a question if you didn't want the answer?. "What's wrong? Wanna talk about it?"

His answer was short and to the point. "No."

The girl looked stunned at that. Almost as if she had never gotten that answer before. Then she looked relieved. "Good. I didn't really wanna hear it anyways. So, liking the new World?"

What was with this girl and her questions? Okay, keep your answers nice and short. Perhaps she'll take the hint to leave. "It looks nice. That's about it."

"Notice anything... different? Unusual?" she anxiously asked. "Oh wait... I just realized we haven't even done introductions yet! I'm Kay. You?"

"ShadowMajin."

Sighing, she shook her head "What is it with you and short answers? You know what, nevermind. I need to go get some experience and money. Know any good quests nearby?"

Shadow shrugged. "Can't really tell ya. I just wasted a few hours in prison. I'm on my way to find something."

The brunette raised an eyebrow. Prison? "Why were you in prison?"

"It's a long story. One I don't feel like sharing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get going."

Turning to leave, Shadow made every effort to leave the girl behind. Unfortunately, Kay didn't seem like she was ready to give up.

"Hey, if you're going to find a quest can I tag along? That way we can take on harder ones or just get easier ones done quicker..." Kay sped up her pace to keep up with him.

Shadow whipped around, leveling his most unfriendly glare that he could muster. It...bounced off the girl harmlessly. Grounding his teeth for a moment, he turned around and grunted out "Fine. Just...fine."

A large smile appeared on Kay's face, the girl starting to skip down the road, but stopped and forced herself to walk. Forced professionalism eh? For some reason, Shadow felt like he was making a mistake.

Wouldn't be his first one here.

...

A roar of pain escaped Raz's lips as he slammed into the cave wall, his roar only met with one of greater power as the bear surged forward. Only by instinct was he able to push himself out of the way as he clutched his stomach in pain. Using the back of his hand, he wiped away the blood at the corner of his lips. He had no need to look at the statistics when his body was telling him that his health had been severely depleted and down to critical levels.

The bear growled viciously which brought his attention back to the situation at hand. "Damn it," he cursed as he pushed himself to his feet and got out of striking range once again. With his only weapon being the short knife he was less than confident about getting close enough to deal some damage of his own. His eyes shifted to the chest in the middle of the room, the contents of which he knew could help him defeat the bear. The amount of time it would take him to break the lock and open up the chest was not something he could afford, not to mention he'd be leaving himself completely vulnerable.

His minor distraction cost Raz dearly as he found himself skidding across the ground not even realising he'd been struck again. He coughed and spluttered as fresh blood escaped his lips and fell onto the dirt beneath his feet. A small rattle sound trickled out of his pants as the potion he had been carrying slipped onto the ground. With the bear charging at him once again, Raz sprung to his feet with rejuvenated purpose as his fingers grasped the glass bottle. Sprinting out of the way, Raz lifted the potion to his mouth and pulled the cork out with his teeth, spitting it off to the side. In a swift motion he downed the contents of the bottle as he turned to see the bear still giving chase. Out of instinct, he tossed the bottle at the charging beast, watching with satisfaction as it shattered across the bear's skull, tiny shards flying into the bear's eyes.

The bear roared in pain as it charged forward blindly, crashing into the wall as Raz leapt to the side. Knowing that there were no second chances, Raz pulled his knife out of the sheath and leapt onto the bear's back, gripping it's fur tightly with his spare hand. Without giving it any time to recover, he plunged the blade into the exposed neck repeatedly. The bear desperately tried to shake him off but Raz's vice like grip held tight, unrelenting in his assault as the knife plunged in again and again.

With a primal roar, Raz buried the knife directly through the top of the skull. A last growl escaped it's lips as the life faded away from the bear's body, slumping to the ground as death overtook it. Jagged breaths escaped Raz's lips as he climbed off the lifeless frame of the beast, the adrenaline slowly seeping away from his body. As his feet connected with the ground, he collapsed to his hands and knees as the experience he had gained from killing the beast enveloped him in a blue glow. Rolling over, he buried his face in his palms as he waited for the adrenaline to completely vanish from his veins. He had no true idea to how much health had been restored from the potion but it didn't matter, the empty bottle had ended up being more useful than the liquid inside it.

Several minutes passed as his breath slowed to a natural rate; his eyes shifting towards the prize held within the wooden chest. Raz struggled to get to his feet, his legs shaking if only slightly before he managed to stabilise himself. A rusted lock was the only thing preventing Raz from entering the chest, a problem he swiftly sorted by stomping on the object with the base of his heel, snapping the metallic object with ease. Ignoring the pain that extended from his foot, he gripped the sides of the lid as he lifted it upwards and stared at his reward, a snide smirk creeping across his face.

...

SD armed herself with antidotes and her enchanted arrows. They weren't very powerful yet, but they would be after she'd levelled up a bit. She headed into the woods searching out a deer for the butcher as per the instructions of her quest. The excitement of this quest was welling up within her with every step that she took.

The butcher had just moved into town, or so he claimed. Because of that, he had no meat to sell. Getting the meat thus fell upon her. The butcher went on and on about how elusive deer were, but SD figured it wouldn't be too bad.

Fortunately, it didn't take nearly as long to find the deer as she thought it would have. She'd been hiding in some brush for almost an hour when the deer appeared, walking gracefully through a grove of trees.

_'Got ya.'_ she thought, silently lifting her arrow-loaded bow. With a barely audible ping, the arrow launched from her bow and hit the deer straight in the heart. It collapsed with hardly a noise at all. Creeping out of the bush, SD walked over to inspect her kill.

Once she collected the deer, she began making her way out of the forest. Even though it was quiet, she kept an eye out. There was no way that the game would let her off easy. As expected a good 100 yards from the edge of the forest, she was attacked by crows. There were three of them, and it was difficult. She had to manage to keep the others away from the deer and kill the one she was facing of against. After twenty exhausting minutes of battle she finally shot the third crow through it's rib cage, and the arrow plunged into it's heart. With a shriek it fell from the sky and landed 10 feet in front of her. With a weary sigh, she checked herself for injuries. It was then she noticed a stinging in her arm where one of the crows had got in a pretty good scratch. Then realization hit her.

_'Wait a minute, I'm not supposed to feel pain.'_ she thought back to the instruction manual she'd glanced at. How did she get to the health meter bar thing? Oh right!

"Inventory." A scroll appeared and she opened it and began looking through her stuff. She noticed her health was low. Not deadly, but much too low for her liking. She'd go back to the butcher and get her reward, then find somewhere to sleep and get some medical attention. SD hoisted the deer over her shoulder and started towards the edge of the forest. The stinging in her arm didn't get any worse, but it didn't get better either. She only had 4 yards left when she heard a strange noise, a kind of buzzing. Loading an arrow she shifted the deer onto her other shoulder, and slowly started movin towards the noise. Peeking through the bushes she saw something shaking and it was whimpering loudly.

_'What in the hell?_' she thought. Placing the deer so it was downwind, she moved closer to the writhing thing.

"Oh God!" she gasped. It was a freaking bee! A Giant one! Practically the size of her hand!

_'That's right, I forgot about those things. But, wait aren't they supposed to be a foot long? And how the hell did it get stuck in a tree!_' The bee suddenly started thrashing even harder. SD didn't know what to do. It was obviously a baby, and she couldn't just kill it, could she?

"Ugh I can't believe I'm helping one of the most dangerous bugs, just 'cause it's a baby!" she sighed exasperatedly. Slowly, SD moved closer to the insect carefully, then when it seemed to be too tired to do anything she pulled it free of its prison. It laid on its back for a moment, then started the horrible whining only louder and more consistent. Her eyes widened with fear and horror as she realized what it was doing. It was sounding an alarm.

"You're welcome," she muttered as she stood and silently as possible went to get her stuff and bail. As she picked up the deer, something hit her from behind, knocking her flat on her face. She rolled over and right above her was the largest bee she had ever seen. Then, before she could move out of the way, the bee stung her on the shoulder just above the cut from the crow. It was horrible, even more so as she felt the poison from the stinger began to course through her veins almost instantly. She clamped her lips together to keep from screaming her head off. The bee flew away, no longer interested. SD rolled on to her stomach and forced herself up. She grabbed her arrows and meat and stumbled through the forest as fast as she could. The world was blurring around her everything began spinning in different directions. She kept going, bouncing off trees, drying her watering eyes, tripping over twigs. Then she saw a blur of blue sky and green grass, and knew she was outside the forest. That's when she noticed what looked like a person.

_'Thank God, someone can help me.'_ she stumbled toward the stranger, trying to call. But then she tripped and couldn't get up. The deer was too heavy as was her body. She had just enough strength to turn her head to the side, so as not to breathe in dust and then the poison took over and she slipped away, into the blackness.

...

"Not much to do here is there?" LadyLaide or Lady for short, said as she tiredly continued to wander around the terrain.

After having quite the eventful entrance into 'The World'—mainly the falling flat on her hindquarters—Lady began to explore the unfamiliar territory, not really knowing exactly where it was that she was going…

But somewhere was better than nowhere right?

Glancing at the empty space on her left wrist she sighed. She must have been walking for what seemed like an hour at least; only she couldn't say for sure because she didn't think to equip herself with a watch and now had no way of knowing the time.

However, after passing by the same bushel for the fourth time, she was assured that firstly, she was walking around in circles and secondly had gotten absolutely nowhere. How that was even possible in a land this large was baffling, but then again Geography never was her strong point.

All this and she hadn't even seen a single soul! It was starting to creep her out. Either this place was really remote or she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be. The latter seeming all the more likely knowing her affinity for trouble.

"Maybe that instruction manual would have been helpful after all," she said as she looked all around her.

There was nothing but grass and fence. No arrow, signpost, hell there weren't even any angry brown mushroom men trying to kill her. It was nothing like Super Mario! Just how exactly was she meant to get to level 2 if she was completely clueless?

Becoming frustrated with her own stupidly, she suddenly spotted a man in the distance guarding some kind of gated door. Running up and managing to get his attention, she began to talk to him.

"Hey, you! Tall guy! What am I to do here?"

"I am a guard. You are to experience the world like never before."

"Yes smartass, I can read the back of the box."

"I am not smartass. I am a guard."

"Whatever. Where am I?"

"This is the southwest gate."

"So… southwest eh?" Lady said pondering over the thought when suddenly she remembered her current dilemma.

"Hmm, you know where can I get a watch?"

"There is a marketplace not too far from here."

"Which way, guard?"

"Continue on in that direction," he said pointing to the left of him, "you will soon find it. You will pass by a forest, but do not enter it. It is a dangerous place, many have entered yet none have returned."

"What do you mean never returned?"

"Go. Do not enter the forest." The man said sharply, turning away from her to go about his duties.

"Useless," Lady said, before flicking her hair over her right shoulder and leaving the man in her dust. Some help he was, but at least she knew now there was a marketplace. And where there was a marketplace, there was sure to be people. People meant answers and answers meant hello level two.

Taking the guard's advice, she continued to walk in the direction he had pointed out, trying not to veer too much from the imaginary line she was following. She sure as hell didn't want to get lost… again.

And soon enough a thick, lush forest appeared in the horizon, seeming to stretch for a good mile or so, if not more.

"This must be the forest the man was talking about," Lady said as a shiver ran down her spine.

It looked so mysterious, and full of secrets from a distance and even the way the guard said 'many have gone, none have returned,' was creepy. But it did make her wonder a little. Just what was in there?

As she got a little closer to the forest edge, she peered into its mysterious foliage, there wasn't much to see. It just looked like regular old forest. A little darker as the foliage got thicker, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Looking to the left and right of her, she entered deeper into the forest, but she could still see the light of day outside and knew the way out.

Trees, trees, and more trees. Nothing but trees. That man was obviously bluffing, she thought. There was nothing scary or mysterious about this forest at all! What a let down. Soon Lady began to feel silly for ever believing that it was cursed.

As she continued to traverse the edge areas of the forest, still keeping a watchful eye on the exit, it was then that she heard it.

Turning around quickly Lady looked all around her in a frantic hurry, her heart pounding in her chest. "What was that?" she whispered quietly as her eyes continued to dart around the dark forest.

That was when she heard something. It was low sound, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it. Perhaps it was just her mind imagining things.

Then it happened again. Lady couldn't be sure, but she swore it sounded like "Help...mmee." That made Lady tremble. She knew this forest was a bad idea. Oh man, she was going to die...

Slowly, she began walking towards the exit. The sooner she got out of there, the better. She didn't want to make a run for it, mostly because she didn't want to alert what ever was around here to her presence. Creeping slowly and softly, she edged closer and closer to the forest exit.

"Help me girl!

This time Lady heard the voice audibly, loud and clear and she was calling for help. Pushing all fear aside, Lady began to search earnestly for any sign of a person in the surrounding area. She knew this person was close, very close, and by their frantic calling was in some sort of danger.

Grabbing on to the nearby trees for support, Lady made her way around them carefully as she watched her footing around the slippery mud. She called out to the girl once more, but heard no response.

Walking further, she noticed something on the ground to the side of some matted plants. Moving closer, she saw it was the twitching of fingertips, definitely human, and immediately ran over to the area. It was the girl that called out to her. It must be. She was lying on the ground, her clothes were torn and she was bruised and swollen with what seemed to be a nasty sting on her shoulder; it was already inflamed and full of pus. Lifting up her head and cradling it in my arms, I began to talk to her.

"Hello? Are you okay? What happened?"

The girl seemed to hear her voice speaking to her, causing her to twitch as her face shuddered.

"Hello? Are you okay? What happened?" Lady pressed. The girl didn't to respond this time, much to Lady's concern.

It was then she managed to hear a very faint plea. "H...elp...meeeee..."

...

**Hope you enjoyed. ****A lot of effort to get each individual author to write their specific parts as collaboration is not easy, considering when there are more than three people per chapter helping out, your reviews would be most appreciated. ** Peace out.


	5. Chapter 5

**This chapter is brought to you by ShadowMajin, Kay, Son Goshen, Boarderline Innocence, Ladylaide, and Kakarot's Son**

**Disclaimer: Team Dragon Star is not affiliated with the .hack series in any way**

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Oh dear lord, why? Why? Why wouldn't it stop? The talking, the questions, it was driving him nuts!

Ever since they had left the village, this Kay girl had been asking him nonstop questions about everything. What ever happened to comfortable silences, huh? Huh? How could someone just keep asking questions, even after all of those short answers? Could nothing deter her? At this rate, Shadow was going to go out of his mind.

At this point, Shadow wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

"So have you ever played The Game before? I really love that game because it pisses everyone off. You just lost it by the way." Mindless chatter spewed out of Kay as they walked down the street. "So where are we going anyways?"

Oh. OH that little...Not only did she talk, but she made him lose The Game! Gaahhh! How could this get any worse? Seriously? Please, if there was a deity up there, please show mercy on this poor, poor ShadowMajin.

"To find someone that'll give us a quest," he gritted out in answer. Please, please let that answer be enough.

Wait...was that...could it be? Up ahead of the two was a large wagon being led by two old-looking mules. A scrawny merchant stood by the wagon, the Quest Icon hovering over his bowed head. There really was a god up there. Trying not to look overeager, Shadow raised a hand and pointed at the worried merchant. "There's our quest."

"Sweet. I hope it's not too easy. I mean really, all the quests and jobs on the old version of the world were getting to be far too easy," Kay said. Silently, Shadow agreed. Perhaps the quest would finally quiet the girl down. With that said, the two of them stepped up to the wagon.

Once they neared the merchant, Shadow immediately activated the character-interaction sequence. "Hey there, what's the trouble?"

The merchant whipped his head over to the two and looked visibly relieved. "Oh thank the Maker you're here. I was praying that you would show."

Oh, that was just fantastic. Don't answer him on the first hailing, why don't ya? "And that praying was for what?"

"You see, I'm on my way to the next village but the forest up ahead is rife with bandits. I lost half of my wares the last time I ventured there. I was hoping to hire some bodyguards in the city, but I couldn't find anyone that would do it. I would be very grateful if you would accompany me to the other side of this forest and defend me and my merchandise."

Hm, seemed simple enough. Turning to look at Kay, Shadow asked "Does this sound like a good enough quest for you?"

The girl shrugged. "Sounds good. Easy money. I mean really, most bandits are pretty stupid..."

Turning back to address the merchant, Shadow nodded. "We'll help you."

A wide smile grew on the man's face. "Fantastic! Thank you so much!" Turning he jogged up to the wagon and climbed on. Grabbing the reins, he urged the mules onward, the mules reluctantly giving in and trudging forward. Seeing as he merchant wasn't offering them seating on the wagon, Shadow followed behind it, Kay keeping pace with him.

* * *

It always felt good to come back from school to receive something you've been waiting for. That's what Alix was feeling right now as she stared at her long awaited package. Her day had been wearisome and stressful, as high school was never easy. She took two tests (and was pretty sure she only got a B on one of them) and did three long presentations. But hey! Everything just went from bad to awesome.

Ever since Alix heard that there was going to be a new version of the World, she pretty much went crazy. As a small kid many years ago, she played the previous version, and it stuck to her. CyberConnect Corporation had created a competition in which only twenty five people would receive the BETA version. Then after that, there would be another load of five hundred people. Of course, she entered and obviously didn't receive the first. That was expected. She didn't even think that she would get one of the rest five hundred, but it seemed as if fate liked to screw with people, sometimes in a good way.

And that was where the package in front of her came in. Needless to say, she was thrilled. She pretty much ripped it open and drew out the disk that lay within. With a grin, she inserted the disk into her computer. Then came the annoying part. Alix always loathed the process of downloading programs. It took a long time and there was always the "I agree to the terms and conditions", "Yes", "Next" she had to click. The process was rather long as she tapped her left foot impatiently against the wooden floor, darning the thing. Terms and Conditions was always insanely long for everything, and she honestly never read them. There was no point, and she didn't do much hacking or modding.

Finally, it was all complete. Alix slipped on the coverings for the game. It began.

"Username," said the computerized voice. She began to contemplate on several nicknames that were given to her and decided on using one in particular that stuck through the years.

"Son Goshen," she replied. It was a name that she had been using on the Internet for as long as she remembered, created from her obsession with an old anime called Dragon Ball Z.

The fun part began. Character customization was something she always loved to do. Alix would've spent an hour looking through all the designs and costumes if it weren't for the consequence of homework and yelling parents. She chose male as gender. Honestly, you could never be too safe in these games. It would be best if she kept her information all a secret. Lucky her username was ambiguous, as well. Well, enough to have several people mistake her as a guy.

She soon decided on light brown, spiky hair with bangs that covered her… errr… his left eye. He had a green tunic on complete with a belt, and leather arm and knee guards. There was also a square covering where his heart would be. He also had a pair of brown boots. Alix grinned again. This design reminded her so much of the main character of another game she played a long time ago. The character was rather skinny (so people wouldn't take too much notice) and was 5"6. He also had dark green eyes, which Alix had always wanted.

"Character customization complete?" the computerized voice asked.

She confirmed.

"Please choose a primary and a secondary class." If she hadn't been following every little tidbit that was leaked, she would be rather surprised.

"Primary class, Twin Blade. Secondary class, Wavemaster."

"Confirm primary class, Twin Blade, and secondary class, Wavemaster?"

"Yes," Alix said. The screen morphed, shifting into the scenery of The World.

* * *

Goshen looked around, taking in his new surroundings. The graphics were certainly amazing. Probably because of the new coverings, he assumed. Everything was so real. They should've mentioned that in the description for the sales. It would definitely have made the game even more popular, haha. Now, to the inventory…

Wait…

There was no Ctrl-I. There was no computer. There was no real world altogether.

What the hell!

So, now how does he open up the inventory and the quests and all that? Clearing his throat, he said, "Open!"

Obviously it didn't work. "Erm, stats!" Nope. "Items!" Nope. "Inventory!" Bingo.

A scroll popped into his hands. So this is how it's going to work, huh? He quickly equipped the weapons he had, just in case some random animal jumped out and attacked. Unlikely, but new world, possibly new stuff… you know. Goshen then tapped the Statistics button, in which the page shifted into a list. Seeing that most of them were zero, and that there were fifteen points not yet submitted, he quickly filled them, the highest been Speed. "Alright, now let's kill something…"

… Which he actually didn't do.

Instead, he took up to wandering aimlessly around the town, one hand fingering the two knife sheaths strapped onto his belt. His other hand carried his magic staff. The graphics were certainly amazing, besting all other games he had played before. The weirdest thing was that he could feel rough pebbles under the boots he wore, and felt the warmth from the sun. This wasn't supposed to happen. In the version he played before, there was no feeling.

Goshen decided to try something incredibly idiotic there and then. He rammed his fist into the building beside him and quickly retracted it. "Ouch! OUCH! DAMMIT!" he swore. That freakin' hurts!

"The hell?" he muttered. Now, why would he feel pain? Okay, this was getting somewhat creepy. Maybe he should look around for another player and see if that person was also experiencing the same thing.

Goshen figured that he still had two hours before he had to go back and start on homework, so he might as well go search for people and find some quests to do. And also, solve this weird too-good-graphics-and-sensation-and-pain-and-can't-see-the-damn-real-world problem.

The forest was lush with vegetation. Bushes, grass, and leaves bathed the area in green, the only contrasting colors being the brown bark of the trees, the dirt path the merchant's wagon was rolling along, and various assortments of berries.

Berries that Shadow and Kay consumed hungrily. "Hey Shadow?" Kay stopped eating momentarily.

"Yeah?"

"Did you check to make sure these aren't poisonous?"

Shadow paused, the juices of the berries smeared on his face. That...was a very good question for once. "Well, do you feel sick?"

"Well... A little... But I kinda do that to myself sometimes. Do you feel sick?" Kay replied after spitting the berries out in her hands.

"Nope, not one bit." Popping another berry into his mouth and chewing it, he added " I would say that makes them not poisonous."

"Eh, if you say so." She looked down at the mush in her hand, debating weather or not to eat it and decided it would be too wasteful to just throw it away. After she swallowed the mouthful of berries she started to reach for more, but stopped when she heard a noise from deeper in the trees.

"Shadow... did you hear that?" she questioned her companion.

Shadow stopped his eating and stared out into the trees. Glancing to the wagon that had move a considerable distance down the trail, he immediately began walking after it. Wiping his hands and mouth on his robe, he then casually reached up and drew his scythe. "Tell me something," he said over his shoulder, "are you any good with those blades?"

"Haven't gotten a chance to try them out in this version, but I would say I was pretty good with them in the old version. They're my weapon of choice."

"Well then, we're just gonna have to see. Our job starts now."

Almost if on cue, three rough-looking men appeared out of the trees in front of the wagon. Immediately, the mules came to a stop, the wagon copying their actions. "Ho there merchant," one of them called out in a swarmy tone. "This here is a toll road and you have to pay the toll."

"B-but I don't have any money," the merchant sputtered out.

"Then we'ze have ta take the toll out of yer merchandize, okay compadre?"

"I-I-I recognize you!" the merchant shouted. "You're the men that robbed me last time!"

"That right? Then it looks like we'ze have ta rob ya again."

At that, the other two men walked over to the wagon, drawing knifes out and holding them threateningly.

"I have a better idea," Shadow called out then as he and Kay closed in on the wagon. "How about you guys just walk away before things get messy here."

As Shadow strolled up to the thieves Kay held back just a bit. She didn't know how her partner fought and thought it best to hold back and watch for a second so she could fight along side him without getting in the way.

"Oh? And yous gonna make us, tough guy?" the leader shouted at him. "Boyz, go mess this wize guy up."

Instantly, the two knife-wielding bandits changed course, heading for Shadow. Faintly acknowledging Kay holding back, Shadow gripped onto his scythe with both hands. He had figured out during his tussles with the wild boars that he was a slow character, but if he timed his attacks right, he could hit this guys before they could lay a hand on him. Though he had no clue as to how fast the bandits actually were, he'd be getting his first look very soon.

At the same time, the bandits rushed at him. Shadow held his ground, watching their movements. They were definitely faster than the boars. Much faster. Grrrr, this fight was going to be a bit tough getting used to. But, he was definitely going to come out on top.

With a growl, Shadow hefted his weapon up and swung it out in front of him, the bandits sliding to a stop just outside his arc. However, that swing wouldn't be the last. Pivoting on his heels, Shadow spun around, using the momentum of his swing to increase his speed-another trick he learned when fighting the boars. There was just a second where he took his eyes off his targets, but when he whipped his head around, he found them just starting to move again. Too slow though.

Perfect.

With a yell, Shadow swung the scythe, this time making contact with the right-most bandit. The blade bit into the man's chest, causing a shallow wound, but one that definitely gave damage. The very force of the slash spun the bandit around, causing him to tumble to the ground with a cry.

However, the second bandit once more avoided the attack. Coming to a stop, his weapon held high behind him and one-handed, Shadow scowled at the bandit, his teeth bare.

That was when a rush of movement flew by him. The next thing Shadow knew, Kay was practically on top of the bandit, a short sword in each hand and was slicing the guy's side into ribbons. A howl of pain erupted from the bandit's mouth as he stumbled backwards from Kay. He tried to stab at her, but Kay was too fast, backing out of range before any of his strokes could touch her.

Bringing his scythe back down and grasping it with both hands, Shadow lunged forward, slamming the head of his weapon into the bandit's chest. The blow sent the thief flying off his feet, crashing to the ground with a thud.

However, before Shadow could move in for the kill, he heard a rustling sound off to his right. Turning his head, he caught sight of the other bandit back on his feet and rushing him, knife held high. Damn it! He had forgotten about him. Turning as fast as he could, Shadow tried to get his scythe up to block the blow, but he knew instantly he wouldn't be able to get it there in time.

Oh cra...

Suddenly, Kay was in front of him, her twin swords held high and catching the knife with ease. Surprise flooded Shadow's face as Kay grunted out "I got him!"

Shadow shook the daze from his head. It was time to put this bandits down for good. "Kay, jump!" he order as he spun around, arcing his weapon as he did so. Instantly, Kay leapt into the air, pushing the bandit's knife arm up as she did so. With a shout, Shadow swung his scythe beneath her, slicing off the thief's legs below the knees. With a horrible cry, the bandit fell to the ground, dropping his knife as he held onto his blood stumps.

A second later, Kay landed on the ground, staring at the fallen man. She glared down at the man with a cold hearted look. 'It's just a game. you're not actually killing someone. You've done this a thousand times before. Go for it.' Those thoughts flashed through her head while she hesitated to finish off the pathetic man laying on the ground before her.

She heard a sound to her left and turned to see one of the other men charging her. She jumped to the side with ease, dodging an attack that would have caused her a lot of damage. A smirk lit up her face as he stumbled past, but it fell as he twisted around and stabbed her in the shoulder as he passed her.

Kay screamed in pain as the dull blade pierced her flesh, and she stumbled back towards the fallen thief. She flailed her arms for a second before falling over. She felt her blades dig into the ground, but when she looked one of them was sticking up out of the middle of the man's throat.

Shuddering in disgust the teen stood and dodged another attempted attack. As the man missed her again she smacked him in the back with the flat side of her blade. He promptly fell on his face and Kay dashed over to where he lay, disarming him before he could do any more damage. From behind she heard another yell of pain and turned to see what was happening.

Shadow stood by the other bandit, his scythe sticking out of his chest, pinning him to the ground. The man struggled on the ground for a few seconds before going limp. With a stony look, he turned to face Kay and the last bandit, aiming his cold mask at the man. A glance to Kay's shoulder told him all he needed to know. Grasping the base of his weapon, one jerk removed his blade from the corpse it rested in. He then strode over to the two like a wrath, the man staring at him with fear as Kay looked on in wonder.

Shadow's face then twisted into one of rage and he leapt high into the air. Swinging his scythe over his head, he let out a war cry as he landed right next to the fallen bandit brought the scythe down, slicing the man's right arm off. The bandit screamed in pain as he grasped the stump.

"You okay, Kay," Shadow called out to her.

"I'll be fine," Kay answered. "You?"

Just as he was about to reply, the bandit suddenly scrambled back onto his feet and took off into the forest, the two players watching him as he left a blood trail in his wake.

After a few moments silence, Shadow remarked, "I guess that ends the job."

* * *

"Alright Mom, I'm done with my chores! I'm going to go outside!" Like usual, Elise's call went unanswered. There was no telling where her mother was and like she really cared. Her mother was too childish for her liking; people like Elise tended to wander from the correct path... and that is just what she was doing.

Her bare feet found their way over the threshold of her front door and across her porch. Maybe a walk would—her thought process was interrupted by the sound of tires on gravel.

She watched as the UPS man exited his crap-colored van carrying two fair-sized packages.

"There goes my walk..." the young teen muttered as she flipped her hair from her face and walked swiftly towards the box-laden man. "Hello sir, I'll take those for you." Although she didn't particularly enjoy it, she was nice to the kind man, even if he did speed.

Once the reckless driver sped away, she turned her attention to the duo of packages that she had retrieved from the UPS man. The larger one was clearly for her mother, but if she wasn't mistaken, it was her name on the other.

She had won.

The Beta copy of The World 2.0 was in her grasp. It was nice to have lots of friends in high places.

Elise shot through the house, dropping the box for her mother and scooping up her laptop along the way. Soon she was in the privacy of her own room and on her bed with scissors tearing into the barrier that prevented her from her prize.

"Oh man, Roman is gonna flip!" She cradled the case and plotted. Revenge against her video game hogging brother would be sweet.

Roman had introduced her to The World after she miserably failed at Skyrim. He stated that it was much easier and he was right. So much so that she had passed him within the hour gaining level upon level ahead of him.

She skillfully unwrapped the case and shoved the disk into her computer's drive. "Accept," she said out loud as a window for the game popped up on her screen, asking her for permission to upload onto the computer. A click later and another window popped up.

"I agree." Click.

"Accept!" Her nose twitched in aggravation, a habit that she had formed, much like an eye twitch. Click.

A few minutes and a string of swear words later, a feminine mechanical voice rang through her earpiece.

"Username."

She smirked. "Boarderlined Innocence." Oh how she loved her internet persona. Ino, as she was commonly called, was everything Elise was not... and more.

Another smirk appeared on her lips as she made her way through the character customization. Her finished product was amazing. Boarderlined Innocence stood about 5' 6" with an above average bust and slim figure. She had sandy blonde hair that hung in a loose braid and partially covered her electric green eyes that increased any emotion tenfold. The clothes were simple: a tight black tunic with excessively long sleeves and hood, fishnet leggings, black ankle boots and a fingerless glove on her right hand.

"Character customization, complete?"

"Indeed it is." This was going to be awesome. The purpose of this eccentric avatar was to draw attention; hopefully it would work.

A list of classes appeared in place of her work of art followed by the voice.

"Please choose a primary class and a secondary class." Perfect.

"Primary class, Adept Rogue and Secondary class, Blademaster."

"Primary class, Adept Rogue and Secondary class, Blademaster? Confirm this is correct."

"Yes dammit!"

"Activation confirmed, you are now entering the world." Her cries of excitement faltered when her breath caught in her throat. And then her pine green eyes rolled backwards as the world slipped into blackness.

* * *

"No!" Lady started, her eyes widening in fear, as the girl in her arms suddenly went limp. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head in jagged motions and her eyelids fluttered rapidly between open and closed.

Panicked, Lady began to call out, "Girl! Girl!" But she could only stare on in horror as the girl turned towards her, opened her mouth to utter her final plea for help before finally slipping out of consciousness completely.

Lady shook the girl "Hey! Wake up! Wake up!" she said in her anguish, but the girl did not and remained flaccid in her arms; offering no indication to say she had heard any sound at all.

With her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Lady began to panic and hyperventilate.

What was she supposed to do?

Taking in deep breaths to calm herself, the resultant adrenaline that coursed through her veins only further fuelled the conflicting thoughts of her mind.

Stupid. Alone. Clueless. Foolish.

She had no science degree, no medical experience; she didn't even have the basic training in first aid. Yet here she was with a critically injured girl, maybe 14, 15, in the middle of dense forest with no way of aiding her.

Discouraging thoughts began to consume her entirely, enveloping her in dismay and grief. With concentration thrown to the wind, she couldn't seem to focus on anything but her lack of skills.

How was she supposed to help this girl when she couldn't even help herself?

Cradling the injured girl closer to her body and rocking her gently, Lady looked up at the clouds in the sky peacefully rolling by and wished things could be that simple.

Tears began to pool in the corner of her eyes, and not willing them to fall; Lady shut them tightly and inhaled deeply, tensing her entire body. She cleared her mind of all its worries and troubles and upon exhaling, she became lost. Lost in the tranquility of peace.

Magic energy began to surround her entire being, covering both her and the girl in a light green hue. The energy continued to build and her hair was forced upwards and wafted gently around her face, yet she was completely still. The green light grew stronger and brighter, filling the surrounding forestry with its warmth; it burned hotter and hotter until suddenly, Lady opened her eyes with fierce determination.

The light was extinguished, the heat quickly dissipated and her hair returned to rest gently upon her shoulders. The power of the Harvest Cleric, she had found it.

Moving away, Lady placed her left foot behind her as she bent over the injured girl. Positioning the crook of her two arms securely around the back of her neck and the underside of her knees, she lifted the girl up into her arms using her right foot as leverage and then carried her away from the forest.

Heading in the direction of the marketplace, she knew that if what the guard at the south-west gate had said was true, then this was the way she needed to go. There was sure to be a hospital near a place of great populace. There nearly always was. It would be the only chance this girl would get.

With each step, her muscles strained and tensed to hold her in place. Lady was unaccustomed to carrying dead-weight for so long and it was a struggle to keep the girl perfectly still and steady within her arms whilst focusing on walking and finding the marketplace. It was a challenge, but not impossible.

Looking down at the girl that lay sleeping in her arms was all the motivation Lady needed. Glancing at her appearance, she assessed the girl's physical state; aside from the torn clothes, superficial scratches and contusion on the left side of her body which was already purpling terribly, it was the sting on the girl's shoulder that worried her the most.

It was oozing large amounts of a watery substance, that ran down the surface of her arm and down to her elbow before it dampened her clothes; the body's acute inflammatory response she concluded. However, if the wound was still open and weeping with such vigour, whatever creature it was that caused it must have penetrated into the deep layers of tissue, which meant it was very prone to severe infection, if not sepsis.

Lady hastened her walk, but before long she was panting from exhaustion. She had now entirely passed the forest, but the weather was humid and sweat coated her body. It ran down her forehead and caused her shirt to stick to the skin of her back, but she didn't let it bother her. She continued on knowing she'd make it.

Soon the noise of people chattering loudly reached her ears and in response her eyes searched for the origin, but found nothing in sight. Walking further onwards, the noise only grew louder and soon she found herself in the middle of a place bustling full of people and stalls.

The Marketplace. She was there.

"Please," she called out. "Please, where is the hospital? This girl, she needs help."

"Move," Lady heard as she was barged by a large burly man and thrown against a nearby post.

Whimpering from the impact, she looked up, but no one stopped, turned or even glanced her way and she found herself ignored. Sellers continued to sell, buyers continued to buy and hecklers continued to heckle. It was as if she didn't exist at all.

Seeing a young child pass her by, Lady limped over to her and forcibly gained her attention, "Please, please help me. Where is the hospital? Is there a clinic? I need to help this girl."

The girl only pointed to a large wooden structure that appeared to be almost hidden in the corner of the marketplace square before she happily skipped away with a doll grasped tightly in her hand.

Following her advice, Lady walked over to the place in question and gazed at it for a moment. This was a hospital? It was an old plain building built from stone and wooden panels. Its wood was molding at the edges and splintering in middle and each stone block was rough and sharp from weathering.

Moving to the door, Lady pushed open the large rustic door using her back and elbow and called out for help to anyone who would listen.

"Please, I need help for this girl. She collapsed in the nearby forest and is hurt badly."

Before Lady had finished her sentence, she was overrun by a team of medical staff who lifted the girl from her and took her away to be treated. Lady fell to her knees, panting as she collapsed from exhaustion; the tension and strain leaving her body as she took a moment to relax.

"Are you alright, ma'am? Do you require help?" A little woman in nursing attire rushed over and asked, but Lady simply shook her head and swallowed as no words would come to her mouth.

Standing up gradually, she moved to the reception desk and held onto it for balance, "Please nurse, the girl, will she be alright?"

"Of course, this is a hospital. It seems her wounds were not so severe, although she will need stitches, antibiotics, and the poison to be drained away from the bee sting she received. All in all she should be set to make a full recovery."

"Oh, so it was a sting?" Lady muttered in thought.

"Pardon?"

"The wound on her shoulder. It was a bee sting?"

"Yes, a hornet specifically. They live wild around the terrestrial areas; she must have disturbed a large colony judging by the size of the wound."

"I see."

Taking out 100 coins, Lady gave them to the nurse along with a folded piece of paper.

"Here, this is for her medical expenses, please see to it that she is well taken care of."

"This is too much, treatment is only 80 coins and…" the nurse began to say, but as she looked up to give the remaining change back to Lady, she was gone.

* * *

"Hey mister, do you know how to get outta the game?"

Kakarot's head spun around.

"And who might you be?"

"Oh, I'm just a random NPC. No, not really. I'm a player. Duh."

"No shit, Sherlock. I meant what's your username? I still haven't figured out how to view the damn things." An irritated Kaka asked.

"Usually, you'd just scroll your mouse over the person, but seeing as the damn real world's missing, I don't know either. Name's Son Goshen, by the way. Call me Shen if you like. And you are?" The voice replied.

"The damn real world's missing? The hell are you talking about? I know this games realistic... but, what're you on about? Name's Kakarot Son, by the way, but you can call me Kaka."

"Ah, you've never played The World before, have you?"

"You're kidding, right? I've played like every freaking game there is... Damn sponsors. This is new, before it was all holograms, but this is all real."

"Huh. I knew it. You've never played The World before. Well, just try logging out. See what happens. Then I'll explain more."

Kaka sighed in frustration. "I've played The World, many times. This is the new beta... that they asked me to test out. But okay."

Kaka focused looking for the log out button, before realising there weren't anymore 'buttons.'

"Um... how do you log out?"

Shen sighed. "Just go to the menu."

"Menu?"

"Yes, menu." Shen said, simplistically.

"Just how am I meant to access that?"

"Say the magic word, Inventory.""Oh yeah... I totally forgot about that. So it's like voice activated? Woah that's cool. Inventory."

A scroll appeared in Kaka's hands. He smiled, it had worked. He quickly found the log out button printed in a bold golden colour. Kaka pressed it, only to see a strange window pop-up on his scroll.

"Log out... error? What's that supposed to mean?" Kaka frantically shook the scroll.

"That's my question. That's why I asked, How do you get outta here?."

"Shit... this happened back awhile ago in that first-person shooter. You couldn't log off when you went to play, of course this was fine as it was just on the computer, but it was irritating if you had friends over. You'd both be stuck playing on your account, and he wouldn't be able to send you any cool weapons from your console. It wasn't a big deal, so it took them ages to fix... I'm guessing that's what's happened here."

"If that's happened..." Shen whispered.

"... We're fucked." Kaka finished.

"No shit, Sherlock." Goshen grinned.

"Don't steal my lines, kid!"

"Hey, who you're callin' kid! Oh, and that also leads to my other question. Since you said that you played the last version, you remember that everyone had the 'grip on reality', right?"

"You, you dumbass. I take it you mean that visor thing?" Kaka laughed, "Every game had that... This time though, we can actually feel!"

"Sort of, not really. But no, the game wasn't designed that way! I've been on the bandwagon long enough to know it wasn't really like this. Look, try punching that tree over there. See what happens." Shen was referring to the tree that stood by them.

"Haha how stupid do you think I am, kid? I'm not gonna punch a tree when I can actually feel things." Kaka laughed, "good try though. 10 points for effort, if I has any less of a brain, I'd have believed you after the whole log out error thing."

"Urgh!" With a swift movement, Shen pulled out one of his knives and pointed it under Kaka's chin. "You think you're so smart, do you? Well look, I could kill you right now and not give a damn. But what would happen to you? Do you simply bounce back and return to the real world, or do you fall into a deep abyss of nothing? Or maybe you'll just faint? I'd say the second one sounds the most likely, because it has happened before, a long time ago. Whatever is going on right now, it's definitely got something to do with the game. Something's up with it. A glitch, a bug, a virus, I don't know."

In an instant Kaka had Shen pinned down, his knife now facing his throat. "Look kiddy, I know you're trying to play tough and all, but threatening those stronger than you, won't get you far. I know for a fact that I've got some of the best stats available at this level, and I like you... I'd really rather not have your blood staining my hands."

Kaka let go, holding out his hand. "If you can swear that you're not going to stab me in the back, I'll trust you. If you don't, you best just get lost right now... because it ain't going to be pretty if you stick around."

"If only you stop your stupid attitude. Obviously you don't know how serious this situation is. We are pretty much in The World. We can even feel pain. And by the way, levels and stats aren't everything."

"They count for something, whilst not anything they do come in handy. But sheesh, you need to loosen up a little. As long as we're not getting attacked or something, I don't see why we can't have a little fun! All these games are the same, they're boring. Joking around's what makes them worthwhile, being a tight ass doesn't get you anywhere." Kaka dismissively waved his hand. "Have I got your word?"

"Sure, whatever. Anyways, I'll meet you in the pub. I need to cool off for a while. Goodbye!"

Shen drew out his sprite ocarina and raised it upwards to the sky- "Hang on!"

"What is it?"

"Do you have anything to eat?" Kaka pleaded, his stomach suddenly grumbling. "You see... I kinda used up all my gold."

Shen blinked. Then, he burst into laughter. "Hahaha! Are you kidding me? You're hungry?"

"No I'm fucking on drugs." Kaka replied sarcastically.

"Ah, whatever. Then come with me, I'll buy you something. Haven't spent any gold yet. Still got plenty."

"Sweet," Kaka slapped his arm around Shen's shoulder. "I have a feeling this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship."

"... You're just saying that 'cause of the free food, aren't you?"

Kaka grinned sheepishly, "Off we go!"

Shen rolled his eyes. He drew out his sprite ocarina once more and the two of them dissolved into pixels.


	6. Chapter 6

**This chapter is brought to you by Boarderlined Innocence, Random Potter Fan, ShadowMajin, Son Goshen, Kakarot Son, and Ladylaide.**

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Ino felt her feet touch, and then a shift in her body weight. Slowly her vision regained, only to be blinded by the sharp contrast in light.

"What the hell?" she exclaimed, taking in the sight. This was awesome! The scenery was so... real!

Okay, she remembered glancing through the manual to calm her frustration. "Now I need to get some weapons... and gain some experience." Oh, what was the word to open her inventory... oh, right. "Inventory." Duh.

A scroll fell into her open palm. After opening it she equipped a pair of emerald and black samurai swords and increased her stats. They now read:

Attack: 7

Defense: 4

Intelligence: 5

Stamina: 3

Speed: 6

This was gonna be fun.

Now on to gaining experience...

Before she headed off, Ino also equipped a dagger, health potion and relocated her 50g to a pocket on her tunic.

"Let's see, I don't want to do a quest just yet, since I don't plan on spending any gold yet... I guess I'll go find something to kill... fun."

Ino headed down a well worn path wondering what she would encounter.

Soon Ino found herself staring down at a flock of vultures feeding on a carcass. This was going to be tricky, vultures were skittish so she would have to be stealthy.

She slid quietly over the grass, skirting the edge of bushes and tall patches of saw grass. Once her targets were in range, she unsheathed her blades and dashed quickly at the group. Like she had predicted they were very skittish and took off with great haste, but not before they suffered some losses.

Not wanting the potentially contaminated meat, Ino absorbed the EXP points and headed off, bored with her own antics.

So off she trekked, wiping her blades clean of blood and sheathing them carefully.

The silence was beginning to annoy her so she swayed as she sang Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. It fit the scenario. Well that is, until she spotted a man ahead of her stumbling down the path she was on.

A potential quest? Nah, she couldn't see the NPC sign over his head... What the hell happened to this guy to get him so messed up?

* * *

Kay had never been in a tavern before. So when Shadow dragged her into one, she hadn't any idea what to expect. The place she found herself in was a dim lit room, half full with NCPs. They were either sitting at the tables or standing around, waiting for something only the World had a clue of. There was a fireplace on one end of the room, a roaring fire in it cooking something that smelled good.

She and Shadow were presently sitting at the bar, Shadow sitting on his stool calmly, almost expectantly.

"Heh... so, I'm just guessing that you've noticed the disturbing little detail about our surroundings feeling real?"

"Hmm?" Shadow looked to her absentmindedly. "Uhh, I guess. I haven't really been hit much so I can't really tell ya."

"So... do... do you think that maybe... this will affect us like in the real world? Alcohol I mean!" Kay managed to stutter out.

What was wrong with her? Was she so nervous because if alcohol affected her it would be the first time she had ever had anything alcoholic? She shook the thoughts out of her head.

Shadow shrugged his shoulders as he turned to look forward again. "I doubt it." Then he paused. "Why, you afraid you'll start acting drunk in your home?"

"Erm," Kay paused, thinking for a minute. She sighed. "To be honest, in the real world I'm only fourteen. I've never had alcohol before. I... I don't really know if I want to or not... but hey... YOLO I guess..."

Shadow blinked at her. "You're fourteen and never drank?" Then he grumbled "I hope to hell I don't get in trouble for this." Raising his voice again, he said "Well then, looks like I'm your first drinking buddy. Bartender!"

The brunette swallowed the lump forming in her throat. 'This doesn't count as my first alcohol, does it? I mean really... it's in a game!' She swallowed her fear and, looking Shadow in the eye, then nodded.

A middle-aged man showed up, a sour look on his face, probably because of the apron he was forced to wear. "What'll it be?" he grunted out.

"An ale for me and a zombie for my friend. She's earned it."

"What's a zombie?" Kay asked her companion curiously.

"It's a beer with a nice kick." He then leaned towards her and whispered "Just don't chug it all in one go alright? This is your first time so you'd be better to take your time. Nurse it."

It was a little while later that the bartender returned with their drinks. Kay looked curiously in the cup that the bartender plopped in front of her. She picked it up with both hands and took a hesitant sip from it. It was strange tasting, both sweet and sour at the same time. She swished it around in her mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it. The young girl spluttered as the liquid burned down her throat, and started pounding on her chest and coughing.

"Damn! That burned!" She glared at him for a second. "Thanks for the warning."

Shadow took a swing of his ale, swallowing it without pause. "No problem. That's my thanks for watching my back. We'll get you something with less kick when you're done."

Kay continued to stare at him as she slowly finished her drink. By the time she was done she had gotten used to the drink, but her throat felt just a bit raw. She could feel the alcohol coursing through her veins like adrenalin.

"What's next? Hit me with your best shot!"

Shadow smirked at her. "Confident much? Alright, Barkeep! Get me another ale and your stoutest drink on tap."

The next drink that was out in front of her was gone in a matter of a few gulps. "Ya know... I only ask questions to try to get closer to people. I've actually gotten in trouble a few times and lost a couple of friends because of it. But... I JUST CAN'T HELP IT," Kay stood up and shouted the last bit out loud. "Knowledge is the the fundamental building blocks of everything! Without knowledge humans are nothing!"

"Nothing huh?" Shadow remarked before draining the rest of his first ale. Setting that mug down, he immediately grabbed onto his preordered second one. "Well, here's some more knowledge for ya. Slow down. You're drinking this stuff like water." Sliding the ale in his hand to her, "Now take your time with this one. Sip, don't chug. We'll make a drinker out of you yet."

Upon ordering another one, Shadow began sipping from it, to give Kay an example. "So Ms. Curious. How many more questions do you still have?"

"Well..." Kay paused, thinking really hard, "If you don't mind me asking... How old are you?"

"I'm 24."

"Okay, well that's good to know! Next question. How the fuck did you end up in prison?" The girl then collapsed into a fit of giggles and fell off of her stool. "Oopsies!" She got up again and sat back on her stool, still laughing uncontrollably.

Shadow raised an eyebrow at her antics. "You okay there? Might want to take it easy with your drinks there, Sport."

That was when a voice shouted out over the growing chatter of the tavern. "I JUST CAN'T HELP IT!" it cried out, catching the two's attention.

Kay turned around in her seat, the simple movement making her almost fall off of her stool again. "Whozat?" she slurred out. Then she caught sight of the man across the room who was mocking her.

"Don't mock me!" she screamed in a drunken rage as she practically flew across the room. She jumped on the back of a spikey, black-haired man sitting in a chair and started trying to strangle him.

* * *

"Hang on... Aren't you a little young to be drinking?" Kaka asked, having just materialized inside of the local pub.

"Aren't you as well?" Shen replied snarkily, standing next to him.

"Hey, I'm 18 in a week! You're like 9 or something!"

"Too bad for you, I'm in highschool... That's close enough. And you act like a very, very stupid toddler."

Kaka gasped... "How'd you know I was four?"

Shen punched him in the arm.

"You know, you punch like a girl?"

"It wasn't a real punch anyways."

Kaka stuck out his tongue. "Sure... That's what they all say!"

"So what do you want?" Shen asked, changing the topic.

"Food? As much as I'd love a good drink, my belly's going insane."

"You a Saiyan or something? But no, what food do you specifically want?"

"Haha, I wish. Goku's epic. Uhh just get me whatever you're having, don't really care."

"... If you say so." Shen then called the bartender. "Anything special you've got?"

"No sir. I'm afraid all we've got are the standards. Although we're are renowned for our Zombie Ale."

"I meant food... you see, me and my partner here are kinda hungry."

The bartender nodded his head knowingly. "I would suggest the Deep Fried Zombie Brains, if you're looking for something that's not too costly."

Shen boggled at the man. "I think I'll pass. I'll... I'll get two Shepard's Pie and fish and chips."

"What do you want for drinks?" he added, turning to Kaka.

"Umm... Shen... Just how much money do you have? That's almost all the money you start off with!" Kaka asked, astounded. Surely this guy hadn't managed to gather any decent amount of gold, yet... The beta was still relatively new.

"Missions?"

"That's pretty neat. I can't believe you managed to do any, already. We'll take a glass of water and a glass of Zombie Ale-"

"Actually, sir, I think we'll just get two glasses of water." Shen glared at Kaka. "You aren't 21, no drinking. Or 18 yet, whatever."

"But... I've drunk before!" Kaka whined.

"No buts!"

"... I'll take the Zombie Blood then?"

"No alcohol! Water, and that's final!" he yelled.

"Why?" Kaka frowned.

"You're not 18 yet, goddammit!" Goshen screeched.

The NPC bartender sweat-dropped. "Two glasses of water it is then..."

"Yes," Shen replied firmly.

"No wai-" A dark glare from Shen, silenced Kaka. Almost. "... You just got a lot more scary."

"Right..." Goshen nodded his head, taking out his money to pay the bartender.

"Please pay after your meal, we're not allowed to accept money beforehand." The bartender took off.

Kaka smiled happily. "There's still hope!"

"Hope for what?" Shen asked in a dull yet inquisitive tone.

"For a beer of course!" Kaka grinned from ear to ear, throwing both hands up in the air.

Shen whacked his palm against his forehead.

"Just what's with you and your sudden need for alcohol? I wouldn't have gone with you, if I'd known you were an alcoholic... I mean you're already acting like you're drunk."

"I JUST CAN'T HELP IT!"

* * *

Goshen noticed with mild amusement that at the same time, another girl - who was also in the pub- had screamed the same thing. It was obvious that she was drunk as well as the man beside her, though he seemed to be in a better condition. Oh, and the fact that they were also players.

Good to know that the World wasn't just occupied by two people.

A loud rumbling erupted from somewhere nearby, startling Shen. It took him a moment, but he quickly realized what was wrong. The fool was still hungry. Shen just shook his head in disbelief, he was such an idiot.

That was when the loud girl appeared out of nowhere and attacked Kaka, her hands wrapping around his throat as she tried to strangle him. Surprise wrote itself on Shen's face as he watched the spectacle, becoming even more surprised when he noticed Kaka not doing anything to defend himself. The same guy who had pressed his blade into his throat previously...

Maybe Kaka liked women and probably was so cautious with Shen because he was currently a guy.

He briefly wondered just why this drunk girl was attacking Kaka, but shrugged it off a moment later. If the idiot wanted to get drunk so badly, he could deal with this himself. And deal with this nutso girl while he was at it.

"Don't mock meeee!" the unknown girl screeched.

"Who the...what now?" Kaka gasped out in mild confusion.

"BAR BRAWL!" several members of the bar cheered.

"Hey, hey!" a new voice called out. The man he saw before was making his way toward them, a slight stumble in this step. The rest of the bar to return to their normal chit-chat upon seeing this. He had to have been tipsy if he couldn't walk very straight. "Kay, calm down," he ordered with a commanding tone.

Still glaring, the girl reluctantly pulled her hands away, leaving Kaka coughing and slightly wheezing. "Whoa, what was that for?"

"You were mocking me," she replied coolly and began to return to the bar while bumping into several tables and chairs.

The man smiled apologetically to the two. "Sorry about that," he said, "Didn't think she'd go around attacking people. Let me buy you two a couple drinks, as an apology and all."

"Yes!" Kaka cheered at the same time Goshen yelled, "No!"

Shen glared menacingly at his companion who glared back, just as determined.

The man raised a questioning eyebrow. "Well, how about you two just come and join us at the bar? The more the merrier and all that."

"Yeah, we can do that," Kaka jumped at the offer before Shen could answer. That idiot really was desperate for that beer.

The man gave them a wry grin at that and said "I'm called ShadowMajin. You?"

"Name's Son Goshen, Shen for short," Shen replied warily. He was never good with strangers, especially ones who were friends with a person that just tried to kill his companion.

"Call me Kaka," Kaka grinned giving him a thumbs up. "Now how's about get something decent to drink?"

"Alright. Bartender!" Shadow called out, waving at the man. "Two more beers, thanks!" He then led Shen and Kaka to his spot at the bar, where Kay was mindlessly singing random songs.

"Oh hi," she said, looking up.

Shen sat down and laced his hands just as the bartender set down glasses of beer in front of them. "I've got a pretty serious question right now," he started, even though he wasn't sure if he would be taken seriously. They weren't as sober as he would've wished. "Can any of you two log out of the game?"

Shadow looked at him cautiously. "Why would you ask something like that?"

"Well, can you?"

"No."

Shen knew it. "You can't, either? The idiot and I can't, too."

"Must be a glitch then," Shadow surmised, "Definitely. The guy I met earlier couldn't as well."

"Shen, c'mon!" Kaka whined, now gulping down his beer. "I told you, loosen up already! Grab a drink and just chill, we can worry 'bout all of this later!"

He decided to ignore him and pressed on, "How long have you been here, Shadow?"

"I'd say about a day."

"… Ah... Fuck."

* * *

At this point, even Goshen had drunk half a bottle of beer. The current situation he'd been placed in was simply too much, and very hopeless. He couldn't help but wonder about what was happening to their bodies at the moment. He heard that before (during the days of the legendary Azure Knights), there was a malfunctioning AI that caused many players to fall into a coma. They only woke after the AI was defeated by the .hackers (all of whom became pretty legendary in The World).

_'Now, thank goodness for my strangely high tolerance,_ he thought inwardly, _'I don't want to spill my guts.'_

He had finally given in and let Kaka drink to his heart's content. The idiot quickly got drunk... or drunker, he couldn't tell. Nonetheless the moron was displaying a very high alcohol tolerance level; Shen was surprised he hadn't passed out by now.

"C'mon, dude, tell us how you got into prison!" Kay said loudly.

Shadow sighed and plopped down his beer. "You're not giving up on that, are you?"

Kay shook her head, a large smile on her face. "Nu-uh."

Shadow was silent for a moment before he began speaking. "The other guy I told you about—the one who also can't log out—he told me about a job I could do to get experience. Said if I did it in a certain way, I would get double the experience. So I did it as he said and the guards suddenly surrounded me."

Pausing, Shadow took a sip from his glass. "Apparently the game doesn't like it if you do something wrong, stuff like stealing or hurting other people. So I was arrested and thrown in prison. All the experience I had at that point was removed and I lost half of my gold. I don't really know how long I was locked up, but it was definitely a few hours." A humorless chuckle left his lips. "Had to give the other half of my gold just to get out of there."

Shen blinked. That guy didn't sound all that bad, but the trick was pretty cruel, though Shadow was a little too gullible to fall for it. He would actually like to meet that person later, if the time wasn't too late. But one glance at the clock told him otherwise. Damn it.

"Well, I guess, it must've really sucked, staying in prison for so long," he said. There was nothing else to say, was there?

"Yeah," Kay agreed.

Kaka, Shen was quite sure had listened to the tale, though not commented. He finally opened his mouth, his mind having just processed what'd happened.

"I'll get that guy for you when I meet him, that way I don't have to repay you for the drinks." Shen was sure that Kaka's sense of logic was gone as Shadow had bought the drinks to 'repay' them. He didn't bother correcting Kaka though, he was probably passed the point of reasoning.

"Who said I was paying for everything?" Shadow asked curiously, but Kaka had turned away once more.

Kay lifted up her cup of "beer" and was about to drink some more when all of a sudden, her eyes rolled back and she tilted sideways, falling onto the other chair with a loud thump. The cup clattered onto the floor, the contents spilling out and staining the ground. The girl promptly began snoring.

Guess someone had one too many beers.

* * *

"Phew." Lady said tiredly as she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

She had spent all afternoon attending to a severely injured girl and never even got her watch! And now she was completely out of money! What a turn of luck…

"Now where am I supposed to get money from?" she said dejectedly, trying to decide just what it was that she should do next.

Tap, tap, tap.

"If only I hadn't stopped to help that girl!" Lady expressed her frustration, throwing her arms thrown up into the air.

Tap, tap, tap.

No, that's an evil thought. She couldn't just leave her to die. She had to help her. But-

Tap, tap, tap.

There it was again. What was that? Lady wondered as she felt that nudging feeling on the lower side of her back again. Turning around she saw it was nothing but a small child. A young boy, in fact, who had taken to impatiently tugging at the back of her shirt for some unknown reason.

Tilting her head to the side questioningly, she waited and expected him to say something only she received nothing but a blank stare in response.

"Err… yes?" she spoke up, hoping for a reply this time.

"Hi," the boy said before looking down at the ground sharply.

"Erm…okay." Lady was confused. What was he doing? Why wasn't he saying anything? Maybe he was shy? Was that it? Was he shy?

Crouching down so she was eye level with the boy and facing him she began to talk to him in a soothing manner so as to calm his nerves.

"Hi there. It's okay, you can talk to me. My name is Lady. What's your name?"

"Spade," a small voice peeped out.

"Hi Spade. It's nice to meet you," Lady said looking at the boy's face and to her surprise it was now wet with tears.

"What's the matter Spade? Why are you crying?" she asked in a soft voice.

"I-I-I've lost m-my cat. H-h-he's never been this far f-from home bef-f-ore," the young child managed to spit out in between sniffles.

"You've… lost your cat?" Lady said making sure she was hearing correctly? Raising a single eyebrow and looking off to the side of her she became a little irritated with her predicament as she considered all that had happened to her so far since entering this 'game'.

Time to let this kid down gently...

Lady sighed dramatically before returning her line of sight back to Spade whilst she mentally prep'd herself for the let-down speech.

Seeing his sorrow, she lost her battle and realised that she couldn't say 'no' to Spade. It just wouldn't sit right with her at all and how long would it take to find a little cat anyway?

"Alright, alright. Stop crying kid. I'll help you find your cat," she said quickly before she had a chance to change her mind.

"You will?" Spade said, facing Lady, his eyes wide and grateful with the occasional sniffle.

"That's what I said, isn't it? Now dry your tears so I can get to work on finding this cat," Lady said as she waited for Spade to calm down a little with the over-excitement he was suddenly exhibiting.

"So this… cat? What does it look like bud?"

"It's orange and white… a bit like a tabby cat, but kinda not. It has a bell on it's collar and-"

Okay… Lady thought, placing a palm to her face. She could see where this was going… and quite frankly didn't care enough to hang around for this cat's entire life history.

Interrupting him before he could go on, she asked, "What about a name kid? Does your cat have a name?"

"Oh sure it's Bucket," he replied innocently.

"Bucket? As in Bucket and Spade…oh the irony."

"I don't have anything to give you…but you will earn 5 experience points!"

"Experience points? Yeah those are sooo going to buy me a new watch… Laters kid," she said walking away quickly before he asked her to find his hamster as well whilst she was at it.

"Buuuuuuuucket!" she began to call out, looking for this damn cat.

"Buuucket!"

Orange and white with a bell. Not much to go on... She really should have listened to Spade when he was telling his story. Another thing she would grow to regret.

"Now where was it?" Lady asked as she searched high and low for Bucket. It was only a cat, it's not like it could have gone far, right? Alleyway? Cats like alleyways; maybe it was in there? Turning around she stood on her tiptoes and leaned forward whilst she peered into the alley off to the side.

Cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice she called out again, when suddenly she was interrupted. "Buuuck- ow!"

"Hey!" Lady said as her hands moved out in reflex to prevent her from falling on the hard concrete.

Dusting her hands off and uprighting herself, Lady shouted out in anger, "Who the hell do you think you are?" She had nearly been knocked completely off balance by this… this… this idiot!

Idiot, boy, man. They were all the same to her!

Lady felt her hands tighten into fists as she saw the back of the man continue to walk off without even so much as an apology to her for his actions.

"Hey! Can't you even say sorry, huh? Why don't you come back over here and try that again! We'll see if you can walk away so easily or if you'll be crawling back!"

The young man continued to take large strides away from her as if he didn't even hear her speak at all.

"Son of a…"

Lady was about to charge right at the rude man and demand an apology when she realised his attention had never been focused on her at all, but rather was on another who stood on the adjacent side of the street.

And judging by the speed he was taking off towards him, he didn't seem to be too happy to see this 'friend' of his.

Smirking, Lady felt like she was psychic… she knew exactly where this was going, and boy did she want front row seats!

* * *

Shadow stared down at the fallen form of Kay. Looked like she was done for the day.

Seeing as he was the one that got her drunk, with a Zombie no less, it was up to him to make sure she was cared for and woke up with the mother of all hangovers. Damn, this was turning out to be a real buzz kill—seriously. A good buzz did not mix well with responsible thoughts. With a sign, Shadow began considering his options. There had to be some sort of inn around here, right? He could get a room there and let Kay sleep this off.

"Barkeep," Shadow called out, turning to look at the man. "I think we're done here. What's our bill?"

"Just you or all of ya?" the man asked back.

"Just for for me and the girl on the floor. Oh, and the first beers for these guys next to me."

"Hey! I thought you were buying!" Kaka protested.

And there was another reason for his dying buzz. "I said I'd buy you a beer, not an entire meal," Shadow deadpanned. "I don't have the money to pay for it all, you know, since I lost it in prison."

Kaka just stared at him before grumbling "Cheapskate."

Okay, this guy may have just been drunk, but he was starting to annoy Shadow. Chances were he'd get a little too dangerous if he was riled up enough. It was probably best if he got him and Kay out of here before the guy and his friend decided to latch on too. One chatterbox of a girl was more than enough company for him.

The bartender showed up a moment later, a dirty piece of paper in hand. "Here's yer bill."

Shadow glanced at it before pulling out a small sack. In it was the reward money from that bandit mission and according to the piece of paper, he'd have enough to cover it. Pulling out most of it, he handed the gold coins the the bartender.

Unfortunately, Kaka saw the exchange. "Heeeey! I thought you had no money! Asshole!"

Oh, did he forget to mention that mission? Well, too bad, Shadow was not in the mood for more storytelling. "Kay and I are leaving. Good day."

"We're going too," Shen spoke up, turning to the bartender. "Can you get our bill as well?"

"But I'm not done drinking!" Kaka complained.

Shen glared at the drunk ass. "Yes, you are. It's getting late and we need to find an inn to stay at. Obviously Shadow is taking Kay to one so it would be in our best interest to follow."

If there were anymore words after that, Shadow flat out ignored them. Their conversation was their conversation. Standing up, he kneeled down and gathered Kay in arms, one arm resting behind her back and the other beneath her knees. Lifting her off the ground, Kay's head flopped onto his shoulder. "No, Mr. Skittles, don't eat my toes," he heard the girl groan out. Shadow had to stop at that one. No, no, he didn't want to know what this girl was dreaming about. There had been enough excitement for one day already.

The floorboards of the tavern groan beneath him as he carried Kay to the front door. Shen and a very reluctant Kaka were following him a moment later, some slight complaints about a dagger in someone's back coming from one of their mouths.

However, there was a slight obstacle in his way to getting out of here: the door. With his arms full of a very drunk girl and a handle being the only way to open the door, Shadow was slightly stuck at the moment. Kaka seemed just as stumped as him, his drunken haze screwing up his brain to an alarming level.

Fortunately, Shen proved to have the brains between them as he strode to the door and opened it. Passing through the doorway, Shadow was slightly blinded by the setting sun that greeted them. Was it that late already? They must've been in that tavern for longer than he had thought. Seemed like that inn was a very good idea to head towards.

"So, any specific inns you have in mind? I know the layout of Mac Anu pretty well to know where the inn should be, but I'm not sure if they updated or changed anything in this new version. It's also too late to travel to another root town at the moment in our drunken situation," Shen said as he looked about the street. There were a few NPCs walking up and down the street, though not many to make it very crowded. There was a woman walking by too, who seemed to be looking for something. Who ever she was, she must've been a player due to the lack of the NPC logo over her head.

"I guess we ask someone," Shadow shrugged. Scanning around, he looked for such a person when he spied someone walking down the street, the sun at his back.

However, something about the man caught Shadow's attention. His build, his clothes, they were the same as Raz. Blinking his eyes several times, Shadow wasn't sure if he was just seeing things or if that was indeed the bastard that had him locked up.

Shadow turned around to Kaka and Shen. "Kaka, hold—" he paused when he noticed Kaka's wobbly posture; it probably wasn't a good idea to burden him with Kay's dead weight. "Shen, hold Kay." Shoving the girl into the surprised Shen's arms, he then strode towards the Raz-lookalike, shoving his way passed the passing woman, much to her protest.

The closer distance, however, had confirmed what Shadow that thought. That was Raz. He was right there, in all of his smug glory, who had purposefully set him up.

Shadow would later blame it on the beer he had consumed lowering his inhibitions as his next actions were completely consumed in rage. Growling as his fist clenched tightly, his vision went red.

* * *

_**That's the chapter guys. Do let the team know your thoughts, till next time...**_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**This chapter is brought to you by Razamataz22, ShadowMajin, Ladylaide, Kakarot Son, and Son Goshen.**

The walk into town had been a long one for Raz, his strength having not quite recovered from the trek back through the cave. Fighting the bear in itself had been tough but marching his way past all of the creatures he was meant to fight beforehand only added emphasis to the point that he was injured. Despite having found a 'Bone Bow' within the chest in the cave, it didn't really help him much considering he had no arrows to fire, something he sought to rectify once the shops opened in the morning.

As he stepped into town, his eyes shifted as he saw a motley looking crew stumble out of a bar, many of them struggling to maintain their posture, one of them even passed out in the arms of another. Raz assumed that these were all of the other characters who had entered the game since he had last been in town, yet there was one person who he recognized immediately, the large scythe on his back practically a dead give away. Back in the outside world, Raz worked behind a bar and as such knew that drunken misfits were difficult to talk to and often picked fights over obscene reasons...having sent Shadow to jail however probably fell under that department.

Raz stopped his march as his eyes sharpened as he grabbed his bow off of his shoulder, intending on using it as a melee weapon if the need arose. He braced himself, waiting to see if Shadow made the first move or if he would get out of this unscathed.

It was then that Shadow caught sight of him. For a moment he stared at him, before turning to one of his drunken companions, showing the passed out girl in his arms into theirs. He then stormed towards him, pushing pass a woman who just happened to be walking by, coming to a stop a moment later.

Pure rage appeared on Shadow's face and Raz knew things were about to get ugly.

Grasping his scythe, Shadow pulled his weapon out and charged at him like a raging bull, a enraged yell flying out hs mouth. His movements seemed to be jerky at time, wobbly even. Despite this, he managed to leap off high into the air, his scythe blade drawn behind him, the staff bottom pointed high into the air. Once gravity took affect, he came falling towards Raz, swinging his blade down at a diagonal angle.

Raz took two steps back, watching as the blade cemented itself into the ground. After having gotten through the cave somehow, he was nowhere near peak condition to fight despite being against a somewhat drunken opponent. "Shadow, calm down," he said trying to reassure the other player.

An animalistic snarl left Shadow's lips as he strained to pull his scythe out. After a moment, the blade tore out of the pavement, ripping out chunks of the ground with it. Swinging it back over his shoulder, he had to take a stumbling step to keep his balance before he tried a horizontal swing. Upon another miss as Raz took a step back, Shadow seemed to lose his footing for a moment as he twisted around.

Again, Shadow readjusted his footing, allowing him to spin around and try yet another swing at Raz, this time the blade coming in faster. With quick reflexes, Raz ducked underneath the attack, the blade cutting into the back of his shirt. As it passed overhead, Raz swung his bow with full force at Kage's stomach, hoping to knock the wind out of him.

His blow rang true as his bow made contact with his stomach. The air from Shadow's lungs rushed out of him, leaving him looking dazed. That lasted all of a moment before life came back to him as he jerked the staff of his scythe forward, slamming the staff into Raz's face. A sickening crack echoed through the street as Raz yelled in pain, his nose feeling broken from the blow. He took a few steps back as he tried to refocus, Shadow looking smug with what he had done. Nearby the other patrons of the tavern screamed for them to stop, but neither competitor paid any attention as Raz dropped his bow to the ground, opting now to fight with his fists alone. Using the back of his hand, he slowed the flow of blood ever so slightly from his nose as his anger seemed to rise. A demonic smile caressed his lips as he beckoned Shadow to give him more.

"Not very smart are ya?" Shadow slurred, his smug look still on his face. "An archer using his fists? You don't stand a chance."

"My sensei would say otherwise," said Raz trying to sound intimidating. In his spare time he did train in Gyojuru Karate but would hardly call himself any good but hopefully he could intimidate Shadow by making it sound like he knew what he was doing.

Shadow's eyes narrowed. "That a fact?" He shifted his stance to an offensive one, though one of his feet slipped towards the end of the shift, making him stand wider. "Then let's see how you do against this, the same strike that killed that thief!"

With a war cry, Shadow lunged at Raz, swinging his scythe high and bringing it down for a vertical slash. Raz didn't look at the weapon descending down at him as he charged forward, the blade of the scythe descending behind him as he closed the distance before driving his elbow into Shadow's sternum.

Shadow staggered back from the blow, his grip on his weapon loosening. He managed to keep his hold on it though, as he then jerked on it to hit Raz from behind. However, the blade of the scythe had imbedded itself in the ground, stopping any movement from the weapon. That result seemed to puzzle Shadow for a moment, but that was all the time Raz needed to launch a follow-up attack. Twisting on the spot, Raz kicked at the back of Shadow's kneecap, forcing the man to drop to the ground and his head to be placed directly where Raz's fist was heading.

A strangled cry flew from Shadow's lips as he lost his grip on his weapon and spun through the air, crashing to the ground. For a moment, it seemed he wouldn't be getting back up, but that moment proved for naught as he slowly pushed himself off the ground. As he got back to his feet, he scowled at Raz before jerking his head to a side and spat out a glob of blood. Raz knew that the alcohol would be dulling his pain senses at the moment so at least he knew come morning the player was going to be in a great deal of pain. Bending down, he picked up the scythe that Shadow had dropped before tossing it behind him and away from where Shadow was. For the longest of moments, the two combatants stared one another down, each showing signs of the battle they had fought.

However, before they could recommence their fight, a voice shouted out "Stop this right now!" Instantly, both fighters turned to see a brigade of guards rushing towards them, their swords drawn and ready for action.

A growl left Shadow's lips. "I am not going back to jail." Glaring back at Raz, he then added "We'll settle this later." And with that, he rushed past Raz, almost tripping over himself as he bent down and snatched up his scythe in mid-stride. He then disappeared from view as he darted into a nearby alleyway.

"Piss off will ya," said Raz as he turned and picked up his bow before running down the streets.

"Stop, you are under arrest!" shouted the guard as he gave chase.

"That's really going to make me stop," muttered Raz as he turned towards a nearby building, activating one of his more recent hunting abilities, allowing him to leap on to the roof with relative ease. Twisting his head over his shoulder as he continued to run, his smirk faded as he saw the two guards giving chase leap on to the roof without any difficulty. "Give me a break," said Raz as he leapt over an alleyway gap only a couple of seconds in front of his pursuers. He could tell by the sound of their feet they were gaining on him despite him having leveled up his Speed consistently so he realized that he needed to do something drastic.

As he leapt over another alleyway, as soon as he landed he twisted to see the two guards already in midair and acting on instinct leapt vertically upwards, bending his body as he drop kicked one of the guards in midair. The blow was enough to knock them back slightly but slightly was all Raz needed as the guard dropped into the alleyway below, crashing into a number of crates and boxes before he hit the ground.

Temporary relief filled Raz's mind before he remembered that there was a second guard and as he turned around it had been his hunter's instinct that saved him as he narrowly avoided the sword slash. The attack had been intended to end it all there, however with it having missed it left the guard open as Raz swiftly pulled out his dagger and stabbed the guard in the chest, just below the rib cage. The guard grunted in pain as he clutched the wound as Raz took off again, neither of the guards giving chase as the hunter made his way out of the city.

* * *

No sooner had Lady predicted that some sort of drama would occur between the two young men, did it happen.

"Raz! Shadow!" Lady heard from all directions, over and over again. There were some passers by who were also watching the fight just like her and they continued to scream these two names whenever one of the men got the upper hand.

Lady was sat on the edge of her seat, it was so exciting yet scary to see the two men go at it relentlessly. They each produced their weapons and the shouts came again,"Raz! Shadow!"

Watching the two men try to grab at each other for a little while longer, Lady concluded that Shadow was the man who had bumped her on the way over. He had a slender, more muscular body and even though Lady still wanted to punch him herself, he looked like the kinder of the two; even when he was mad. It was all written in his eyes, his eyes told a twisted tale of a story and even though his gaze was so intense and mind-blowing, there was a gentle edge to them. A side that told Lady, he wasn't a bad person at all.

The other one they called Raz in comparison, his eyes were hard and cold. His clothes were dirty and tattered and it seemed like he must have been in more than his fair share of fights today. He looked like a troublemaker, but it was his fighting skill that surprised Lady the most. His stamina was unrelenting and he only was getting faster and smoother in his attacks - low blows, uppercuts, jabs. He was very tactical, more tactical than Lady had ever given him credit, But this Shadow was no rookie either, or so it seemed. Though he took more blows than Raz, he took them in stride, proving it would take more than one hit to take him down.

These two men were on a whole other level and this could not have been any average fight. They did not fight as the fighters Lady had seen before, this time was different. It seemed like there was real emotion and drive that fueled them, some greater determination that caused them to excel and push their bodies to the limits. These two men here weren't fighting for fun like most people, they were fighting to kill.

As this realization came upon Lady a cold breeze suddenly fluttered by and it was then that Lady realized how dark it was getting in this land. The gravity of the situation became so apparent it froze Lady to the spot and she shivered. Someone was going to die here. She was going to watch someone die and there was nothing she could do about it.

The two men came to a stop, glaring each other down as they took in heavy breaths. Their weapons were abandoned on the ground. This...this was it. The next blow would settle the fight and one of them was not going to be walking away.

Lady couldn't bear to look at the two men anymore, this was not what she signed up for when she followed Shadow. She only wanted to punch him... maybe only an apology now that she had seen his fighting skills. She didn't want that to happen to her... Not after seeing Raz bleeding so profusely like that and breathing heavily.

This wasn't what she wanted, this wasn't what she wanted at all.

"Stop this right now!" Turning around Lady saw a group of NPC's —all of them dressed as guards—shouting and running towards the area where the two men were fighting and incidentally towards her.

The ruckus and commotion they made shook Lady out of her trance and she realised she was in trouble. She was right in the middle of a fight! If the NPC's noticed her here, there was no way she was going to get away without a sentence or some kind of jail time, especially with her kind of luck.

It was time to get out of there and fast!

* * *

Shadow breathed heavily as he leaned back against a pillar.

This was nuts. Pure nuts. These guards just wouldn't give up! He had thought he had nice head start on them, but no. They caught up with him a few blocks away from the tavern and he had to haul as much ass as he could. Unfortunately, the guards were much faster than him and had practically been on top of him before he had to do something drastic.

Namely fight back.

Turned out these guards weren't much for heavy blows, at least when Shadow used the flat side of his scythe to knock them into the sides of buildings. That was only a temporary solution though as more guards seemed to swarm out from nowhere. It also didn't help that his senses and movements were hindered by the alcohol he had earlier. He was almost completely sober—that fight with Raz having much to do with that. That still didn't help his situation.

That situation being him stuck in an abandoned building while being surrounded by who knows how many guards. Well, to be more specific, it was a building undergoing construction. Most of the outer wall were finished, along with the roof, but there were large gaps in random places throughout the walls. For some reason they had finished the roof, which was being mostly supported by the main support columns Shadow was leaning against. This pretty much made most of the inside of the building a large spacious room filled with building equipment. That didn't leave him with many options to be frank.

He needed to get out of here. He was just a sitting duck, a trapped rat the longer he stayed there. Unfortunately, there wasn't any where he could turn. Running outside meant he would run into the guards and get swarmed. There wasn't anywhere inside the building he could climb to get on the roof and maybe try and escape by jumping rooftops. Boy, did he know just the kind of buildings to hide in.

Wait, maybe he had an item on him that could help. "Inventory," he said, the inventory menu popping up in front of him. One look told him that no, he did not have anything that could help him. That was just...perfect. Gah! What else, what else could he do? "Status," he then said, a window appearing that held his health, stats, and experience points. Ugh, nothing here eith—

Hold on. There was a tab with Special Moves on this window. Focusing on that, the tab opened and revealed a move he had. Hmm...that could help...no, it only had one target. Damn, and it looked to be a strong move too, despite taking up nearly all of his SP. Too bad he hadn't thought to use it against Raz.

Exasperatedly, he sighed as he looked to his right. Blugh, there wasn't much to look in here other than some building material and pipes.

Shadow blinked his eyes. Pipes? Were those for plumbing? Looking down to the floor, he saw several pipes that stuck right out of the building's foundation. If those were indeed plumbing pipes, then it seemed Shadow had one way out of here.

"Surrender now!" a voice called out from one of the gaps in the wall, causing Shadow to jerk his head up and look. Damn, well it was now or never.

Taking a few steps towards the pipes, Shadow held out his scythe before him, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. Accessing his special skill, he suddenly felt a rush of energy flow through him, nearly making him feel like he was glowing. His arms felt stronger, heck his weapon felt like it was humming in his hand. Looking to his the head of his scythe, he found the blades were enveloping in a red aura before the blades turned completely red. A crazed expression covered his face.

Lifting the scythe high in to the air, he then brought the scythe down, shouting "Wicked Strike!" The moment to red-glowing blade touched the floor, it crumbled and sent cracks shot in every which direction. The next thing he knew, the ground beneath Shadow's feet gave way and he was falling. "Oh fuuuuuuuuu..." he cried out.

Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea.

* * *

Unbeknownst to Shadow, the sudden destruction of the building's foundation had other consequences. The weakness in the floor spread out to the nearby support columns he had been standing against mere moments early. The very ground beneath the pillars crumbled away, which caused them to lose their footing and give way beneath the weight of the roof they held. A loud, groaning sound was made as the pillar collapsed, raining down pieces of the roof in their wake.

Steadily, the building fell in on itself, a thunderous roar echoing throughout the town as dust and dirt were sent high into the air.

* * *

Kaka, Shen and Kay were still standing around, dumbfounded... Or rather Kaka and Shen were, while Kay was being held by the latter."I don't think he's coming back..." a now somewhat more-sober Kaka said.

"No kidding," Shen said, glaring at his 'companion.'

"What did I ever do to piss you off?" Kaka asked, noticing the heated glare coming from Shen.

"You do know how much of an annoyance you've been tonight, right? And how much money I just spent on your drunk ass?" Shen asked with almost clenched teeth. He shook his bag of gold. "Now I gotta restock all over again doing those stupid quests."

"Hey, hey..." Kaka said waving his hands in the air, nervously. "I"m sure it'll seem like less tomorrow."

"Like hell it wi-" Goshen was interrupted by a falling building several blocks away. A large cloud of smoke was flying high up into the air as the town seemed to shudder from the destruction. "What the frick was that?"

Kaka had become more serious now. It was weird, it was as if he wore different facades which changed with the situation.

"I'm going to check it out," Kaka said, leaving no room for argument in his tone.

"Like heck you are!" Goshen yelled, "You're completely drunk and walking towards a collapsed building! Who knows what's there... _You're_ staying here, _I'm _investigating."

Walking passed Kaka, Shen handed him Kay. "Take care of her."

* * *

As Shen walked towards the collapsed building, he sighed.

These people... even thinking about it made his head hurt.

An almost-bipolar idiot, a girl who had no tolerance for alcohol whatsoever—Shen almost wondered what her real personality was like... but then again, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know—and an almost normal guy who decided to run out and attack some poor fool. Or maybe the poor fool wasn't so pitiable, if he was sly enough to land a guy in prison.

"I wonder who did this... There seems to be no clues," Shen wondered out loud absentmindedly. Before him was nothing more than a massive pile of rubble that was once a building, though Shen suspected it may have been nothing more than a building under construction. He could see plenty of building supplies scattered around the rubble.

"It was either that Shadow guy or the other guy that he was fighting..." Kaka hiccuped, "I think."

Shen held back another sigh at Kaka's hiccup. He was still obviously drunk, and how he was managing to hold a decent conversation was beyond him. And what was he even doing here? Shouldn't he have been slumped against the tavern with Kay?

"Didn't I tell you to stay back?"

"Did you?"

Shen couldn't hold the sigh back this time. It seemed as though Kaka had outlived his usefulness for the day.

"Hey... What's this?" Shen looked up to see Kaka pointing to a sign, juggling Kay in his arms to do so before settling on placing her over his shoulder and holding her with his right hand.

"Inn... 500 meters, north."

"Hmmm... seems legit enough, I guess. Makes sense."

"Then, let's go?"

* * *

Raz dropped to his hands and knees, fatigue taking over his body as he rested underneath the shade of a tree as the final light of the day drifted underneath the horizon. He crawled forward, a great deal of the strength on his body having been sapped by the day's activities and while he had almost died on a number of occasions, he couldn't help but let a small smile caress his lips. His adrenaline still hadn't subsided, his lungs burnt from exhaustion and his body felt on the verge of passing out, this was a feeling that was near impossible to achieve in the outside world.

He tilted his hair backwards as a cool breeze drifted through his hair, his mind wondering back to the outside world. It was clear that there was something preventing everybody from getting out, it wasn't just him. Thankfully he was just one of a couple who were trapped, by now the company had probably been informed of what had happened and would be preventing as many people as they could from entering.

A rustle nearby caught his attention and he turned his head to where a person now stood, their condition almost as bad as his. Yet the appearance was easy to recognize yet for some reason, Raz smiled at the scene in front of him. "It had to be you didn't it."


End file.
